











■Vf;' 



ely-v>■-;^,<^-;,.•■ . . 



.■'.:'■■ ■)! 



f- - 






l:^^'!-^'^'' 



"ij-k-i-i'!:- 




Book ' /4^ 

UNIT /^/^ 



Entry Catalogue Number 

__ __....-^-£;'P'.^-a. 

C/a55 



PRESENTED BY 



1923:1 b— 20 m 



r^ 



AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 



(^ 



2tn (*Bp0??cc 



y\ 



X)' 



nj 



BY 



DENTON J. SNIDER. 



NEW EDITION. 




ST. LOUIS. 

SIGMA PaBLISIIING CO., 

210 PINE STREET. 

1892. 



MAY 19 189,? 



%1'^ 






\2 



r^ 



Kntorod acconliiiK to Act of CoiiKroHS in tlic year 1886, 

By DKNTON J. SNIDEll, 

111 the olllce of Hio Librnriau at WiiBliiiiKtoii, D. C. 



By Tra.Ti8fei 



jLU 



' ~'j( 



Press of Nixon- Jones rrintmg Co, 



N CONTENTS. 



Canto I. — Ipiiigenia at Mycenve. 

Innocence and Guilt 5 

Canto II. — Ipiiigenia at Aulis. 

Sacrifice and Rescue 51 

Canto III. — Iphigenia at Tauris. 

Service and Release 07 

Canto IV. — Iphigenia at Delphi. 

Return and Restoration 141 

A.PPENDIX. — Iphigenia in Pkose. . . . 187 



(^c- 'ynM^c o-tu^ n^yi^c-u. cC^iti^z^^e^j dlcv^ 
'U/i'vedj ■i.-pt d'C-l-a-n^ c-afnj^^ci'id ccyj^i j/f^-i. ■^n^e ^<z.€A.-c-t 



Canto First. 
Innocence and Guilt. 



ARGUMENT. 

The scene of the legend of Iphigenia at Mycence is 
laid in the city of Mycence ; the incidents transpire he- 
fore the Trojan TFar, and before the abduction of Helen, 
though they lead up to the latter event. The story has 
two main points : the visit of Paris from Troy and the 
visit of Helen from Sparta, into both oftohich visits the 
tale of Iphigenia is woven. 

I. Paris arrives and is received by the king, Aga- 
memnon, loho has the ambition of uniting the European 
and Asiatic branches of the great Hellenic people. 
Both Greeks and Trojans are Hellenes (^pronounced 
as two syllables in English), the one with an Occidental, 
the other tvith an Oriental tendency. 

By giving his daughter Iphigenia in marriage to 
Paris, Agamemnon hopes to accomplish his plan. But 
the bard, luho feels the inherent antagonism of the two 
sides, opposes the plan, a?id tells his dream, lohich pre- 
figures the grand conflict of the future. Iphigenia, 
the daughter, opposes also, and loill have nothing to do 
with Paris. She quits his presence, and secretly goes 
to the fane of Artemis, the Goddess of virgin purity, 
which is in a retired spot on the mountain above the 
city. There she receives from the Goddess the message 
(6) 



which announces the whole circle of her life — her sacri- 
fice, her rescue, her mission to Barhary, her return to 
Hellas. 

Meanwhile Mycence is having a merry time in enter- 
taining Paris, loho charms all, both men and ivomen. 
But there is one of his company, Antenorides, who feels 
and foretells lohat is coming. (7. — LII.) 

II. In the midst of the entertainment Helen, arrives 
from Sparta to take part in the festival. The most 
beautiful woman of the land is received by the King and 
the Greeks loith great honor and admiration. Iphi- 
genia comes from the shrine of Artemis and meets 
Helen, tvho recognizes in the maid a higher nature than 
her own, and receives from her a token. But soon Helen 
sees Paris, toho, after the song in her praise by the bard, 
the voice of Greece, meets her and bids her follow him 
to Troy. At first she yields ; then, coming upon Iphi- 
genia, she masters her fateful passion, and starts for 
home the next morning early. Bat she still thinks of 
Paris, and on the way she enters the temple of Aphro- 
dite, who bids her follow Paris, ivhen a violent storm 
arises through lohich she flees to Sparta. 

The 'people of Mycenm know not what to make of her 
sudden flight. Paris at once sets out for home in pre- 
tense, but for Sparta in reality, though under protest of 
Antenorides. A messenger rides into Mycence and 
announces the flight of Helen; then Menelaus himself 
arrives. The note of war is heard through Hellas. 
{LIII. to the end.) 



(7) 



I. 

O what is this which sings within the mind, 
As round the land of Plellas fair I tread ! 

O what is this which always I can find 

Alive and speaking still, though long since dead. 
Still present to mine eyes, though it be fled 

Thousands of years in its Hellenic glory ! 
An ancient tale to modern music wed — 

Hear now the rhyme and hearken to the story. 

H. 

It was a golden day around the towers 

Of rich Mycenoe with her crown of stone; 
The Spring danced up the hill with lap of flowers. 

Which she through all the blooming plain had 
strown ; 

The fragrant Wind did flute his sweetest tone 
Amid the bending branches of the tree ; 

On every grassy plot Love built a throne, 
The time was full of Heaven's minstrelsy. 

(9). 



10 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGHTEB. 

III. 
The city had a hill within its wall — 

And still it may be scon, a towering crest — 
Which from its tireless watch looked down on all, 

At times like war's fierce eagle from its nest, 

At times the hilltop heaved as if the breast 
It rose in swift response to tender eyes. 

With gentle breath of poesy caressed ; 
To-day it swells to soft blue Grecian skies. 

IV. 

Around the maiden city's swelling breast 

Was drawn a wall, a moveless rocky band. 
Whose heavy clasp her heart within had pressed, 

Without had kept each wanton, lustful hand ; 

Still every breeze strewed kisses through the 
land, 
And tender speechless missives on their way 

Fell down the air, by Aphrodite fanned, 
And all declared it was a golden day. 

V. 

Then broke upon the sight a pageant new 

Across the grainfields by the sunlit sea, 
Where many a sail swan-winged o'er the blue 

Far-quivering main was floating airily; 

That pageant soon a troop was seen to be. 
Swimming upon the golden stream of morn ; 

A youthful troop of argent chivalry, 
With blazons strange bedight and Orient-born. 



IPHWENIA AT MYCENJR. 11 

VI. 

Paris of Troy the foremost lording hight, 

The fairest youth of all the Trojan land, 
Within his face he bore a sunrise bright, 

The curls danced round his neck in many a 
strand, 

A feathery touch slept in his tender hand, 
Love's smiles played from his lips into his eye 

Which coldly thence its charmed object scanned ; 
He sang to harp sweet strains of poesy. 

VII. 
And with him many Trojan gallants came 

With lightsome heads and lively hearts, save one 
Who Antenorides was called by name, 

Of noble father the still nobler son ; 

He left in Troy a maid whom he had won. 
Who unto him, as he to her, was true; 

But his great love could never sadness shun, 
For his deep soul presaged the day of rue. 

VIII. 

The town came forth to see that troop of kings. 

In shining pomp and grand festivity ; 
The altars smol^ed with fragrant offerings, 

And through the streets processions moved in 
glee. 

Chariots dashed down the hill into the lea, 
The merry stream poured out the Lions' Gate, 

Thrown open was old Atreus' treasury. 
And ancient fanes shone forth in golden state. 



12 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

IX. 

Kino; A2;amemnon moved with orracious cheer, 
He was a lordly man, not old, not young ; 

His word was always musical to hear, 

A gold-bossed scepter in his hand he swung. 
While honeyed speech dropped from his fluent 
tongue : 

" Pour out thy heart with us, O noble guest. 
This stay of thine shall not remain unsung; 

Not all of ours be thine, but all our best. 

X. 

" Thy glorious name before thee crossed the sea. 

Thy gracious form, the sweetnessof thy word; 
Friends with the Trojan folk I fain would be, 

And knit a bond whereof no soul has heard ; 

Deep in my heart to-day I am bestirred 
To break the barrier of yon blue salt flood ; 

See there ! above us wheels the favoring bird 
To join all Hellenes in one brotherhood." 

XI. 

A look he cast upon his daughter fair, 

Iphigenia, stainless at his side ; 
The moment Paris bent his glances there, 

She hung her head, her eyes to earth she tied, 

The stranger's look she could not well abide ; 
She turned away and hurried through the crowd. 

For in some secret nook she thought to hide. 
Far from the festival and tumult loud. 



inilGENIA A T MYCENu^. 13 

XII. 
Back of the court she had a garden seat, 

Where she had nourished many a loving flower ; 
These were her friends whom daily she would meet 

To hold mute converse for the passing hour, 

And over them she held a gentle power ; 
Oft would they seem to bloom her future ways, 

Of pain and gain foreshow the fitful shower, 
The silent destiny in fairest days. 

XIII. 
To his high palace Agamemnon sped, 

He set before his guests a banquet rare, 
The wine soon flashed each face with sunsets red, 

The courtly tongues were cloyed with dainty 
fare; 

Many an Argive chieftain too was there. 
Out high-hilled cities of the land they came, 

And mingled with the Trojans killing care. 
And much they honored the great Prince's name. 

XIV. 
Paris led off in festive merriment, 

His Trojans well the beaded cup could tease ; 
Their song of wine with that of women blent 

Revealed the heart in all its hid degrees ; 

But other strains heard Autenorides, 
As he looked on and that mad revel saw ; 

For in the wine he could behold the lees, 
And could in license read avenging law. 



14 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

XV. 

Yet one relief he had of suffering, 
A single bliss in Hellas he could find, 

It was to see the daughter of the king ; 
She raised to life within his boding mind 
The image of the Love he left behind, 

And darted through him gleams of happiness 
For one sweet hour; but then again he pined, 

And saw his lady pallid in distress. 

XVI. 

A bard there was who in the palace sang , 
An aged holy man who much had seen ; 

Of sorrow he had known the deepest pang, 
Of joy had felt the finest rapture, keen 
Within his soul full strung; at Thebes had been 

Twice with the seven Argive chiefs, who sought 
By the pure fire to make that city clean 

Of its old fateful taint from Asia brought. 

XVII. 

Defeat and victory had been his life. 

Once he had lost at Thebes his chieftains all ; 
Then he beheld renewed the deadly strife, 

And the proud town one heap of ashes fall. 

Of changeful destiny he was the thrall, 
His heart became a harp of many strings, 

Which Fate would strike to make her madrigal. 
Whence sparkles fell of all melodious things. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCENuE. 15 

XVIII. 

The Muses gave to him a voice divine 

The famous deed heroical to sing ; 
He hymned his Grecian soul in every line — 

That soul the world to harmony could bring, 

And see its image in the smallest thing ; 
But what his people felt, he saw with eyes, 

He flew before them high on eagle's wing. 
Discerned the speck across the farthest skies. 

XIX. 

He felt the struggle coming on afar, 

The burden of his song was Zeus' s host; 

He knew that in the Trojan lay the war 

Which Greek must end by voyages unblest. 
And by a ten years' time of wild unrest ; 

That bard — he was a man born into all, 

His glance he threw beyond the mountain crest. 

Where he the Future saw and heard it call. 

XX. 

To Agamemnon now these words he s})ake ; 

*' I bear to thee my heavy soul, O king; 
To-day I fear thou wilt thyself unmake. 

Thy mind soars up beyond all reckoning ; 

Across the seas thy thought has taken wing. 
While one now walks thy court in silent quest 

The jewel of our Greece to Troy to bring; 
That man beware, beware the fateful guest. 



16 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGIITEB. 

XXI. 

** I saw him in my dazzled drcain last night 

Fulfill the perfect circle of his deed; 
What is already done, was but a mite, 

A little point flashed with a burning glede; 

More swiftly ran the point than any steed 
As it sped round to what was next to be ; 

The Future slid into my vision, freed 
From that dark line which is Time's boundary. 

XXII. 

" High over Troy that point a blaze became, 

It lit and flared on Paris' swollen sail, 
The raging Hellespont upsprang in flame, 

Outburning all Jove's lightning and the gale; 

Into Mycenae swept the fiery trail. 
Then back it streamed with tenfold passion dire; 

The sea-foam. Aphrodite's mother pale, 
Flamed round the ship and set the waves on fire. 

XXIII. 

'* In his returning ship I saw to be 

What brings to sons of men the most delight, 
The highest prize of lofty minstrelsy. 

The soul that thrills into the sense of sight, 

The look that suns the world in newer light; 
Then many warriors follow on the wave. 

They fill a plain and soon begin a fight 
The stolen prize of their own land to save." 



IPHIGENIA A T M YCENuE. 1 7 

XXIV. 

To him replies then Agamemnon proud: 

*' Groat now in Helhis is my sovereign power! 

Of men to serve I cannot count the crowd, 
Of islands of the sea I have the flower, 
Beneath this scepter wild Arcadians cower, 

The Isthmus links two mighty seas for me, 
Two continents it joins in one high tower 

Which shows me forth to rule all Barbary. 

XXV. 

" But now I bend my look across the sea, 
This day to Asia I shall reach my hand, 

And of Troy's citadel the taker be, 

And towns and tields to farthest Phrygian land, 
By that which I have in my bosom planned ; 

To Priam's son I shall my daughter wed, 
Troy and Mycenae shall together stand. 

Or shall together lie with cities dead." 

XXVI. 

Forthright the father sought that garden spot. 
His daughter's mind in gentle wise to test. 

He found her deep within a darksome grot. 
Where but a single sunbeam, doubly blest 
Played down her forehead and her lips caressed : 

" Why hast thou fled away beyond my call? 
Fill up the festal day with thy full zest. 

Prince Paris now awaits thee in the hall." 



18 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXVII. 

The maiden suddenly became a prayer ; 

Upon the world she gazed with deep blue eyes, 
Wherein it melted to a vision fair, 

And rose with music sweet unto the skies, 

As earth might turn a sudden Paradise ; 
It was her gift to change the small and bad. 

Till both to boundless good together rise ; 
Yet in her glance a suffering she had. 

XXVIII. 

Of the rich summer time she was the flower 
That dwells beside the wild, far-flashing sea ; 

To look beyond she had a subtle power, 
A gleam she threw into infinity 
And there another world could plainly see ; 

Mirrored the man she saw in every motion. 
Born in her glance was all he was to be. 

His hidden genius on its hidden ocean. 

XXIX. 

Gentle the maiden spoke her word, but strong : 
"The stranger who has come from Troy to- 
day — 

Father, I would not do him any wrong. 
But when I think of him, I cannot pray 
To purest Artemis who is my stay ; 

His glances light the air but to cajole. 
To heart he never will a heart repay, 

I cannot think he loves one human soul." 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCENJS. 19 

XXX. 

The father quenched his angry flash, and smiled: 
" Oh let no more the winds foreboding sigh 

Through all thy young and sunny days, my child ! 
Let minutes now be mad, and wildly fly 
Round thee and Paris mid our revelry. 

Not often such a day shines on our towers ! 
The ancient Sun upon our stones doth lie, 

And pours the city full of golden hours." 

XXXI. 

He turned because he heard the trumpet's blare 
Hurrying to his ear leap after leap, 

xVs if a war steed galloped through the air, 
Bearing a message o'er a mountain steep. 
To rouse the soldier on his guard asleep ; 

The King in haste turned back to find his guest, 
But he could catch a word that he should keep, 

A woeful word torn out his daughter's breast; 

XXXH. 

"I feel my foe has come and I shall reap 

The harvest ripe which he this day will sow ; 

For deed of his I long shall have to weep, 
As Ida's maids now melt the mountain snow 
With tears for his deep wrongs ; I shall not go 

With him to Troy; oh let me die forlorn 
In Greece I To me and mine he is the foe. 

And him I feel the foe to Time unborn." 



20 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

XXXIII. 

There stands high up above the town a fane 
Whose marble front peeps out the thicket green, 

And every stone a softened tint hath ta'en 
Purer than any pearl was ever seen 
Washed in the waters of an ocean clean ; 

The leaflets flutter noiseless round the side, 
The tree-tops to the roof do fondly lean, 

The jewel of the wood within to hide. 

XXXIV. 

The timid deer sports there without alarm, 
The wary bird need there no trapper fear, 

It was a spot where man dared do no harm, 
Peace reigneth in that wood for all the year, 
The fountain's modest joy one scarce will hear. 

As it wells out beneath a root of might, 
And trails in crystal pure a leaflet sere, 

Or paints a tender stain on pebble white. 

XXXV. 

In secret soon the maiden thither fled, 

She wound with the transparent happy rill, 

That to the fane up in the greenwood led. 
Along a channel sweet with many a trill, 
Whereby she moved through music up the hill ; 

A pretty fawn she saw within a grot 

To slake its thirst beside the forest still. 

Then pass before her to the sacred spot. 



IPRIGENIA AT MYCENuE. 21 

XXXVI. 

It was a pi'etty dappled timid thing 

That trembled to its silvery spots of hair, 

Then faded from the raargent of the spring, 
As if it saw within the waters there 
Some ugly image of a brutish bear ; 

But as it fled, it ran into a cloud 

Whence flowed soft strains upon the forest air, 

Of flute and song mid rustling of a crowd. 

XXXVII. 
At once broke out of music to the glance 

Bright wreaths of maidens floating in the breeze, 
And to the strain they soon began a dance 

Upon the vacant air and through the trees ; 

But scarce the eye their fleeting shapes could 
seize. 
Until they wheeled above the secret fane; 

Hovering down the sky they dropped with ease. 
While to a distant lull had died the strain. 

XXXVIII. 

This was the home of Dian, these her woods 
Where oft the Goddess rested from the chase. 

When she amid the sylvan solitudes 

Had led her choir in the tumultuous race 
And of that sport the air long felt the trace, 

Though the gay rout had faded all away ; 

It was the soft worn heart's own resting place, 

Far from the town, and the bold stare of day. 



22 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

XXXIX. 

A billowy moon-tipped play of fold on fold 
Waved through the middle of that multitude ; 

The wreath was broke, and one might then behold 
A form that stepped into the fane and stood, 
While all the train of Nymphs fled through the 
wood, 

Some to delight in oaks and some in water ; 
Then spake the queen of that sweet sisterhood 

In fond low tones to Agamemnon's daughter: 

XL. 

" Beware the handsome man within thy walls ! 

His eyes' soft sunbeams are a sea of ill, 
Within his slippery words lie many falls 

For those who touch the circle of his will ; 

Float not upon the raptured waves that thrill 
Out of his being, by Aphrodite's breath 

Stirred to a frenzy that the Avorld shall fill, 
And sweep the woman with the man to death. 

XLI. 

*' Thee have I chosen for another deed, 

Thou art to be the vase of suffering ; 
The Trojan love shall never be thy meed, 

But a new love thy life to light will bring; 

And yet thou too wilt not escape the sting 
Which the high Gods in greatest deeds bestow; 

For lands, for worlds thou art the offering. 
But I shall save thee at the last sharp blow. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCENuE. 23 

XLII. 
" And I shall bear thee to a foreign land, 

Where thou a holy priestess art to be 
Within my temple on the wild sea's strand, 

Where broods a world of slavish savagery, 

Which is, by deed of thine, to be made free. 
This is the Love which now in thee hath gleamed, 

And not before thou hast brought liberty 
Unto that land, art thou thyself redeemed. 

XLIII. 
" O virgin, I am Artemis, the Queen, 

I roam the wood, I ramble in the sky ; 
My silver bow hung there thou oft hast seen. 

Illuming night with modest purity ; 

To thee of all mankind I feel most nigh. 
Upon my path in Heaven the brightest star 

Is thine, dispensing light to Barbary; 
Go forth and softly shine with me afar. 

XLIV. 
*' After long years to this old home of thine. 

The Hellas new, thou shalt in joy return ; 
My brother Phcebus calls thee to his shrine, 

Where thou shalt teach the world what it must 
learn — 

A duty new in living to discern ; 
By thee, his seeress, shall his fane be trod, 

A higher priesthood shall thy exile earn, 
Thou art to be the voice of wisdom's God. 



24 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

XLV. 

" There on old rocky Pytho's deep-cleft crest 
In light thou shalt sit down with speech re- 
newed, 

When the great war is over, and holy rest 
Settles upon the land in golden mood 
Of sun and song and blissful plenitude ; 

The far Barbarian's love, aye and his sword 
'Tis thine to bring to Hellas for her good; 

Kestoring her, thou art thyself restored." 

XLVI. 

The Goddess vanished from the maiden's look, 
But left her in the glimmer of a dawn 

Through which did faint away the tuneful brook, 
And through whose milky haze she saw the fawn 

Dart trembling from the wood across a lawn, 
By men pursued with axes flashing bright. 
Till in the rosy distance it was gone 

Behind the hills, whence shot anew the light. 

XL VII. 

There long she stayed, nor did her people know 
Whither the maid this merry while had fled ; 

Meantime Mycense had an overflow 
Of earth below and heaven overhead. 
Of wine and sunshine which all golden shed 

Upon that happy feast their richest showers, 
And lightly mid the throng the Muses led 

And lulled to rest the swifty-stepping Hours. 



IPHIQENIA AT MYCEN^. 25 

XL VIII. 

It was time of sweet forgetfulness, 

When Lethe bauds to men her deepest draught, 
For which full pay she asks — a fierce distress 

When ihey awake and feel the poisoned shaft, 

Whereof there is no cure in human craft, 
But in hot blood-drops gurgling from war's blow, 

When Furies have upon the nations laughed 
Their diabolic scorn and overthrow. 

XLIX. 

Ah yes, it was a merry cheery day, 

Paris the gallant Trojan conquered all. 

His Asian tongue could lisp a Grecian lay. 
And sweetest accents mingle in its fall; 
E'en proud Queen Clytemnestra was a thrall 

Of that soft spell which men were forced to own ; 
He made the people whisper, great and small, 
" Lo ! he has stolen Aphrodite's zone." 



Each minstrel sought to sing his bravest song 
Of heroes o-reat and the heroic deed ; 

Of war between the Gods and Giants strong, 
Of captive maid by doughty warrior freed, 
Of hearts that must with all men's sorrow bleed. 

Of Theseus bold, of suffering Hercules 
Who hath of heroes won the golden meed, 

As he who can endure until himself he frees. 



26 AGAMEMNON' H DAUQHTEB. 

LI. 

But the one song that people heard above 
All others sung upon that fatal day 

With maddest sting — it was the song of love. 
From every street uprose the dulcet lay, 
Tingling the blood to fancy's tricksy play, 

And hymning viewless nets by Eros wove. 
Which tangled mortals in the fateful fray 

And caught the highest God, old father Jove. 

LII. 

O Antenorides, what silence deep 
Broods over thee amid the festival ! 

He marked a moving eye that knew no sleep. 
He heard Cassandra's far forewarning call 
Through revel moan like distant waterfall ; 

Many a ghostly shape before him stood, 
And drew a bloody sign upon the wall 

Mid whisperings low : It cannot come to good. 

LHI. 

But look beyond, there comes a distant train 
Slow-winding o'er the blue Arcadian hills. 

Like a sea-serpent of the richest stain 

It swims and every heart with beauty thrills. 
Yet with prophetic flashings of its ills; 

It rears its crest above the verdant height. 
The little vales with lambent streak it fills, 

Swimminof the landwaves green into the sio-ht. 



IPHIGENJA AT MYCENJS. 27 

LIV. 

In gorgeous curves rolled on the beauteous thing, 
As it unfolded in the haze of afternoon, 

And sweet delirious currents it did bring 
Into the eye, and make the daylight swoon 
Away to dreamy glimmers of the moon ; 

But in the sky above there hung a frown, 
A cloud that made a dismal threat, but soon 

That cloud had melted to a golden crown. 

LV. 

'Twas Helen coming up from Lacedemon, 
In bright Mycenee's joy awhile to stay, 

And see the festival of Agamemnon, 

The song, the dance, and the procession gay 
With the sweet bloom of manhood in its May; 

Iphigenia too she longed to see, 

Both women live together in my lay, 

Twinned deep in storied old calamity. 

LVI. 

But now she comes, the glorious Spartan Helen, 
Into the Argivo plain she bursts like day. 

And with her a new world for men to dwell in, 
Life, weary theme, becomes a happy play, 
To Gods serene is turned the human clay. 

Of an Elysian change she hath the power, 
Beneath her glance each tree throws out a 
spray. 

And where she treads, the earth sends up a 
flower. 



28 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGIITKB. 

LVII. 
She moves to Lious' Gate the fairest woman ; 

The stony Lions' Heads peep out their lair 
Above the rock-built portal, with traces human 

Of Love's sweet trouble for that being rare, 

Whom they within the walls will guard with 
care 
As they the city guard and its wise laws ; 

To glances soft drops down their savage glare 
And tender-hearted grow ferocious claws. 

LVIII. 

The people line her way along the street, 
The heroes bold take on an humble air, 

And in their hearts adore that shape complete ; 
The children stand in little groups and stare, 
Wishing that they had Helen's golden hair, 

Or hand, or her white robe of fold on fold; 
Even the women must pronounce her fair. 

When they her failings all had scanned and told. 

LIX. 

Within the walls there stands a palace high, 
Whose court is girt with many columns white, 

And there the silver fountains gaily ply 
The fragrant air with jets of crystal bright, 
Or send along the sand swift streams of light. 

Wreathing around the feet of boys of stone. 
Who hold their torches in the eye of night, 

Or lean beside a kingly carven throne. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYGEN^. 29 

LX. 

Those graven boys will stir from spot to spot, 

They have a life within their marble breast, 
For ever fixed in motion in their lot. 

Forever moved by passion is their rest ; 

So has their Maker on their form impressed, 
With heart-beats all his own a double soul, 

Which he himself in struggle long possessed. 
Ere he could make the warring twain one whole. 

LXI. 

Beneath a chiseled shape of youthful maid. 
Who coyly touched with dainty finger tip 

Her own chaste bosom, full of thoughts unsaid 
Of that sweet hour which brings the lip to lip. 
From whose deep rubied flower lovers sip 

Busy as bees — there Helen sat in state; 
Into all Grecian hearts her glances slip 

Never to be forgotten — it is their fate. 

Lxn. 

She greets the thronging heroes one by one ; 

Lord Agamemnon speaks the golden word : 
" Hail, Helen, coming like the singing Sun; 

Through thee what lies within us dark or blurred 

Breaks out the brightest strain that time hath 
heard ; 
That look of thine shall be forever ours, 

And thine our hearts, for thee to battle stirred : 
Hear while we swear it, ye Olympian Powers." 



30 AGAMESmON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXIII. 

All shouted loud applause, the oath they swore, 
Heard by the Gods above in council deep. 

Who then resolved the casket to outpour, 
Which, full of evils, they beside them keep 
For man, lest he in sloth may fall asleep, 

Or may for fateful deed unpunished go ; 
Whereby the innocent must ever weep. 

Yoked with the guilty in the chain of woe. 

LXIV. 

Meantime from Dian's fane within the wood 

The maiden Iphigenia homeward sped, 
And soon beside the restless brook she stood 

Which leaps beneath the towers to its bed ; 

Many a thought was whirling through her head 
Of that strange life of hers which was to be ; 

The bodeful words the Goddess to her said. 
Fell cascades dark down to a sunlit sea. 

LXV. 

She passed within the court where Helen stood. 

Who spake a tender greeting as she came; 
*' Sweet maid! thou hast upon thy face a mood 

Which calls the faithless world by a new name ; 

Before thee I confess I feel a shame 
That I cannot attain to what thou art; 

How gladly would I change for thee my fame, 
And in my life feel full thy steadfast heart ! 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCEN.E. 31 



LXVI. 



" Deep longin<y for I know not what, I had; 

But when I see thee I am whole again ; 
I cannot tell what makes me feel so sad, 

Oft must I shed my tears without a pain, 

Without a cloud it could forever rain; 
Oh I am rent in twain, I can but wail, 

The other part of me I seek in vain, 
Methinks thou hast it — tell me now thy tale." 

LXVII. 

" I have no tale, O lovely tears," she said, 

" But let me give instead this little ring, 
Within doth sleep a gem, in golden bed, 

A little token of my heart I bring ; 

But let it nestle in its covering 
Lest it be lost, and lose its setting too ; 

When coming trials leave in thee a sting. 
Perchance it may hint help to bear thee through. 

LXVIII. 

" Ah were I but an hour so fair as thou I 

But as I am I shall contented be ; 
1 look so gladly on thy shining brow, 

And yet a line of pain I there can see, 

An agony that struggles to get free. 
Can suffering interlock with beauty so? 

At whom lookst thou ? That is young Paris, he 
Who came from Troy to-day, as thou may st know . ' ' 



32 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGIITEB. 

LXIX. 

The crowd broke in with noisy reverence, 
Their prayers rapt by deep-lost looks to say 

Before that form divine ; without defense, 
Iphigenia lone was swept away 
On living surges crazy with delay; 

Matiy a gallant Greek crushed in, one glance 
To get far dearer to him than the day, 

And stood in worship sunk as if in trance. 

LXX. 

And Paris came and all his Trojan band. 
To gaze on her whom men agreed to call 

The fairest woman of the Grecian land. 
With them a guest now in Mycenie's hall, 
And Helen had a winsome word for all; 

But when on Paris she had turned her look, 
Each was the other's victor and the thrall. 

Each read the other's fate as in a book. 

LXXI. 

But hark! the bard begins a song in praise 
Of Argive Helen, Lacedemon's Queen ; 

Strong are the words whereof he builds his lays, 
And sweet the cadence falling in between. 
Dropping like skyey notes from choirs unseen : 

*' O thou, of all our hearts the very heart. 
Of our fair stock the branch forever green, 

What Hellas is in all her best, thou art. 



JPHIGENIA AT MYCENJE. 33 

Lxxir. 

*' For thee we give with joy this pearl of life, 
For thee our city and its law are naught, 

For thee with tears our children and our wife 
We leave, and let them die at home distraught, 
While we shall haste to distant battle fraught 

With danger unto thee and thy fair form; 

When once the bosom's guest is thy sweet 
thought. 

Farewell our home of peace and welcome storm. 

LXXIII. 

" From our deep fealty to what is thine 

Doth trill, of all our life, the sweetest drop; 

To us doth pour from thee a stream divine. 
Which fills our human lot unto the top 
With singing floods of joy that never stop 

E'en in the tempest or the whirlwind's blast, 
Though we be dashed with all the ills that drop 

From out the skies, and smite the world aghast. 

LXXIV. 

" For thine own honor lives heroic song, 

The tune of flutes, the touch of thin-shelled lyre ; 

In many-folded robes the Graces sweep along, 
Who the dear maidens in the dance inspire 
To be as thou art, fairest of the choir; 

Youth hands to thee her overflow of wine 
Lit with the sparkle of Olympiafi fire ; 

Ere Hebe fills Jove's beakei^filU she thine. 



34 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

LXXV. 

" The mighty Gods for thee come down to earth, 
And in a burst of joy their forms reveal ; 

The Muses sing themselves to sudden birth 
In strains of thine, to lighten and to heal 
Our being' Spain, which the born man must feel, 

While he shall stain with tears his prison bars ; 
The man must sorrow know as manhood's seal, 

To take within his boundary the stars. 

LXVI. 

" The sword waits in its sheath on thy behalf, 

And always we shall have to draw it too; 
Our life for thee we offer with a laugh, 

Demand it now, the gift is always due ; 

If false to all, to thee we shall be true ; 
The price we pay for what of thine we get, 

Who beauty loves, must ever beauty rue. 
This law the Gods on mortal men have set." 

LXXVII. 

So sang the bard, and from his heart he sang ; 

He knew the Future, Present, and the Past ; 
He knew the joy of beauty and its pang. 

Love gave him bitter-sweet unto the last, 

Though the white years upon his head had 
massed ; 
Love made him young, but also gave him sorrow. 

While Poesy did wing him for the blast, 
That where he fell to-day, he rose to-morrow. 



IPIIIGENIA AT MYCEN^. 35 

LXXVIII. 
But Helen glided softly out the throng, 

A sudden pain she felt, a double pain ; 
She felt old burdens of that poet's song 

Return and press upon her life again ; 

And with them now a burden new did strain 
Her heart-strings tense, already sorely weighed ; 

Soon Paris had her footsteps overta'en, 
He knew his prize and in a whisper said: 

LXXIX. 

•< In thy first look the Gods declared thee mine ; 

Not Hellas is thy worthy dwelling place, 
Go with me to the East, where thou shalt shine 

The rising sun upon a starry race ; 

Leave homely duty to the homely face ; 
Choose now a life of love with me to roam, 

Leave thy dull husband here, and his dull 
days, 
Quit rocky Sparta — Troy shall be thy home." 

LXXX. 

But faintlv Helen stemmed his stronff command : 
" Oh can I leave behind what I have been — 

The golden years that clasp me to my land, 
Leave husband and my babe to scorn and teen, 
Leave Hellas too, where I so fair am seen. 

Where longer than the Gods themselves remain 
I shall upon my Grecian throne be queen, 

For Zeus hath promised me his future rciorn. 



36 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXI. 

*' But ah ! no word of Zeus my step can stay, 
When close behind me steals my destiny ; 

Yes, Love, I feel I must with thee away. 
To-morrow on thy bosom I shall flee 
Through storms of all the Gods across the sea. 

Though I presage some mighty overthrow 
To lurk in this rash deed I do for thee; 

Fate rules my world, not Zeus — with thee I go." 

LXXXII. 

Then Paris left, for falling like a ray 
On night came Iphigenia, maiden free; 

She met pale Helen gliding out the way. 
And marked upon her brow the mystery : 
' ' What aileth thee — art ill ? Tell it to me ; 

Thy looks that were erewhile the sweetest grace 
To music wed, have lost their melody ; 

Methinks I see a battle in thy face." 

LXXXIII. 

Helen gave answer in a flooded strain : 

" Sweet maid, me to myself thou dost recall; 
I had a sigh that tore my heart in twain, 

And I was cast away from home and all. 

But now I shall myself anew install. 
And my whole life I shall through thee redeem ; 

Music returns within, I hear its fall, 
Zeus ruleth now, and Fate is not supreme. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYGEN^. 37 

LXXXIV 

*' To-morrow with the lark I shall be seen 
Hurrying home beneath the Spartan shield, 

There still to be what I have ever been, 
Till it be time to rove the Elysian field 
With sceptred Menelaiis, who will wield 

A spirit sway with me for all my days ; 
And I shall never die, shall never yield 

To age, but stay the soul of Poet's lays." 

LXXXV. 

In secret Helen left with rising day, 
She kept her promise Paris not to see; 

But ere she went a mile upon her way, 
A soft repentance she could feel to be 
Mellowing her heart into Love's piety ; 

And longing came, which deepened to a sigh : 
*' Ah me, why did I treat him churlishly. 

And did not even tell him once good-bye." 

LXXXVI. 

The road ran down along the loving sea. 
Whose billows, one by one, upon the shore 

Would fall and plead at Helen's feet to be 
One moment, then would break forevcrmore 
Into the sand; far out was heard the roar 

As ancient Ocean felt the power near. 

And splash of sea nymphs and of Tritons hoar, 

Hurrying to the beach, now grown so dear. 



38 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

LXXXVII. 
Then from the foam did Aphrodite rise, 

And step with grace upon her pearly car 
Made of sea-shell streaked with ruby skies, 

And tuned to music's lull without a jar; 

Nereids gathered round her near and far. 
Who strook the brine from fervid coal-black hair, 

Whereon white hands would tremble like a star. 
Twirling the tresses round their bosoms fair. 

LXXXVIII. 

And sea-boys, even one short glimpse to get 
Of perfect being hovered far in droves; 

The mighty whale, the little finny set, 

And the strange dweller of lone island coves, 
The odd fantastic shape that shyly roves 

In deep sea-vales — all felt the strong constraint ; 
The heart of Ocean, full of many loves. 

Swelled to a mountain high, then fell down faint 

LXXXIX. 

As Aphrodite stepped from out the wave, 
And entered in her fane upon the land ; 

The sea grew calm at her old task to lave 
The shoaly ledges with her pale blue hand, 
Calm at her ceaseless washing of the sand 

That it be clean for the last day ; then fled 

The sea-boys with the nymphs far from the 
strand, 

Oceanus droops down as he were dead. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCEN^. 



39 



XC. 

The Goddess went within her temple fair, 

Whose slender amorous columns strove in vain 

To kiss the sea which bore her gently there, 
In purple billows imaging the fane, 
With every form of Love's strong joy and pain 

That lay upon the temple's front up high, 
Carven so that they seemed to live again. 

Or in their agony again to die. 

XCI. 
Those sculptured forms of old fond histories 

Must then have heard within the house a call 
From that fair Queen, as she did lightly rise. 

And take her place upon the pedestal. 

Where, as she stood, her garments she let fall, 
Which, sea-stained, hid away her shape divine, 

Whose glow the cold hard marble can enthrall, 
And make men drunk with beauty as with Avine. 

XCII. 
And there in lofty state the Goddess stood. 

With her deep bosom bared unto the sight, 
Whence rose the first sweet throb of motherhood. 
The thrill to sink away in Love's last rite 
And in a dream of it to vanish quite; 
The robe dropped down the loins, when was re • 
vealed 
To mortal men the Goddess in her might. 
Who deepest wounds hath made, and deepest 
healed . 



40 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XCIII. 
To Aphrodite's temple Helen came, 

In her long journey of the lonely day, 
Within her bosom burned the hidden flume, 

She longed the Goddess one short prayer to say, 

Perchance a little sacrifice to pay, 
Some solace to receive from her sad thought 

Which dwelt upon a stranger's face alway, 
Or left her for a moment more distraught. 

XCIV. 

She looked, and words broke deeply from her 
breast : 

" Goddess, I never knew thee until now; 
Of all divinities thou art the best. 

Though oft before I paid to thee my vow. 

My life with thine thou never didst endow. 
Of land and sea thou art the conqueress, 

Henceforth in all I shall be thine, be thou. 
Be it to bring me joy or bring distress." 

xcv. 

Therewith from rutfled skies the thunder fell, 
Down through the temple roof red lightning 
broke, 

And made from clouds a falling fiery well. 

Then mid the flames the Goddess sternly spoke 
In words which Helen smote like hammer stroke : 

** My Paris whom I sent, why dost thou flee? 
This burning wrath of mine wilt thou provoke? 

Yield me and follow forth thy destiny. 



JPHIGENIA AT MYCENJE. 41 

XCVI. 

" With him to Troy thou must erelong depart, 

This HeUas must thou leave and family ; 
Here Pallas wise and Juno chaste thy heart 

Will share ; my sway must undivided be ; 

A life of roses wilt thou lead with me ; 
Why turn thine eye to look upon that ring? 

Halved shall I not endure the sovereignty ; 
Beware my curse, beware the Paphian sting. 

XCVII. 

«' A God can give or take away his meed, 

Love can I give, but also I give hate; 
Detested shall I make thy life indeed, 

As thou art now beloved by small and great ; 

Nor this hard blow will yet my anger sate : 
What makes thee Helen I shall take away, 

What holds the world in thrall to thee like 
Fate — 
Thy beauty shall I shrivel in a day. 

XCVHI. 
*« 1 bid thee break at once that hated ring, 

Else I shall strike thy youthful body sere. 
Leave thee a withered, wrinkled virtuous thing, 

Whose lusty spring is torn from all the year, 

Whose juices scarce will furnish one moist tear 
Which thou wilt try in loneliness to shed — 

' Tis broke ! Seek Spartan home without a fear, 
I shall be there aud everywhere ahead." 



42 AQAMEMN0^'8 DAUGHTER. 

XCIX. 

Then Helen fled out in the tempest dazed, 

To hollow Lacedemon in a dale; 
The hill-tops whizzed, on peals of thunder raised, 

As if they would the skies above assail, 

And over all the Gods of Greece prevail ; 
The lightning chained with fire the peak to peak, 

Then leaped with molten links into the vale, 
And clanked them round and round in vivid streak. 

C. 

Still Helen fled amid the storm forlorn, 

To her a saving power had been given ; 
Zeus shook his locks of lightning never shorn. 

Yet smote not that lone woman with his levin ; 

In some deep protest raged the hills and heaven, 
Still on she went through brakes and thickest holts, 

Around her everywhere the crags fell riven. 
The woman charmed the God's own thunderbolts. 

CI. 

The house of Agamemnon woke that day. 
In misty morn to find fair Helen fled; 

Still flocked the heroes greetings sweet to say, 
For each had risen early from his bed. 
To catch his dearest dream ere it had sped ; 

In vain, for she was gone, their hearts were shent : 
"It is some whim in beauty's fickle head:" 

So guesses flew in deep bewilderment. 



IFHIGENIA AT MYCENAE. 43 

CII. 
But in those bosoms wrath soon rose to prayer : 

" Though thou be gone, Oh leave thy look 
behind ; 
It builds in us the world each day more fair, 

Till yestreen we saw Helen, we were blind ; 

Rest thou the image painted in our mind 
Of man and woman's love in fond caress; 

Thou art the very self of human kind, 
Blent to a vision of all loveliness." 

cm. 

They shouted for the bard, but he was sad, 
He would not sing his music-flooding ode 

Which bubbles out Castalia's waters glad. 
But spake a word of melancholy bode : 
"Gone! still her look of Fate she hath be- 
stowed ; 

It is in me, I see it in you all ; 

Whoever bears within his soul the groad 

Of Helen's look, must soon obey her call." 

CIV. 
Now Paris, when he heard that she had gone. 

Bethought himself that he must also leave ; 
Next day he bade farewell at early dawn. 

With tears at parting he did seem to grieve ; 

Whereat the king began anew to weave 
Hisplan, and called his daughter, but she had flown 

Unto her flowers, fresh buds to interleave 
With thoughts about the life to be her own. 



44 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

cv. 

Paris gave out he would return to Troy, 

To tell the happy tale of what he saw, 
The festival, the friendliness, the joy. 

With sober things — the city, land and law; 

But southward all his sails were seen to draw 
By the Laconic coast into the sea; 

Mycense gazed afar, presaged no flaw, 
But turned to games and dance and minstrelsy. 

CVI. 

One man alone of all the Trojan band, 

While out at sea, sought Paris to dissuade, 

And begged to steer his ship to his OAvn land ; 
'T was Antenorides who loved a maid 
At home, to whom his mind was ever staid ; 

"This Spartan tour," said he, "portends no good; 
The Grecian woman is in us a blade 

To pierce the Trojan heart and let its blood." 

CVII. 

The Trojans laughed at the prophetic word, 
And all applauded Paris and his scheme; 

The madmen their true voice no longer heard, 
They too found Helen's look deep in their dream. 
And all was not which there to be did seem; 

So shouted they: " Now is our happy mood. 
We must again behold high beauty's gleam, 

And pluck the reddest rose of womanhood." 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCENAE. 45 

CVIII. 

So sailed they on, nor had they any care, 

They stirred long ripples in the silent seas, 
And when ashore they saw the starry Bear 

By night with blazing eyes look through the 
trees, 

And heard wild voices coming down the breeze ; 
Still sailed they on, their deed could not be let, 

But wise, forethoughtful Antenorides 
Was dragged along with them in fateful net. 

CIX. 

A horseman dashed into the Lions' Gate 

One day, with foam-Hakes snowing from his 
steed, 
And the pale rider scarcely could await 

The struo-<TUng word to break the woeful deed ; 

«« The Gods the loss of Hellas have decreed! 
A Spartan home hath our fair Helen quit ; 

Along my pathway mother Earth did bleed, 
As if she in her very heart were hit. 

ex. 

" To Lacedemon came a Trojan man. 

And Menelaus gave a holiday. 
The dearest maidens danced, the young men ran, 

And all the people turned their mind to play ; 

Meanwhile the stranger planned his wicked way 
To carry Helen off beneath the night ; 

To Grecian gifts behold the Trojan pay, 
And it shall be re-paid with all our might. 



46 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CXI. 

*' Still yonder ye may see the loving pair 
In lounging sail to dally on the wave, 

Which Zephyrus caresses with his air, 
While soft Oceanus the keel doth lave, 
And flocks of doves fly in the sun to save 

From view of men the hour of lovers' flisht: 
Now will my country be an unsung grave, 

And all its golden days will sink in night." 

CXII. 

Iphigenia too in sorrow spoke : 

" So thou art gone at last, it was my fear; 
By some fell power my ring, I know, is broke, 

I gave it thee, stained with thy dropping tear, 

When thy full heart had drawn to me so near ; 
Ah never have I felt my life so crossed. 

No more than thou can I stay longer here. 
With thee now lost am I, the world is lost. 

CXIII. 

*' Nay, so I must not speak — it is not true ! 

I shall not yield a thought unto despair; 
Up, shrinking soul ! I still have work to do ; 

Lay hold of Time, O woman, bravely dare. 

Think not too much, for thouiyht doth brins: the 
care; 
Though thine be death, each blood-drop is a seed. 

By action thou old Fate shalt overbear. 
The test of womanhood is now the deed." 



IPHIQENIA AT MYCEN^. 47 

CXIV. 

But Agamemnon's words were open joy: 

" Let the fair woman go, I fain would pray ; 

I shall restore her soon, and lofty Troy 
In mighty war I shall bring under sway, 
Whereto I long have sought some secret way ; 

I shall that Asian bound to my full power 
Now push far out into the rising day; 

To Priam's son I yet shall give a dower." 

CXV. 

But while they talked, arose a distant dust 

Upon the road around a little hill ; 
That dusty cloud was whirled within a gust 

Of sudden wind into the town so shrill. 

That all the people leaped up in a thrill ; 
Then from the cloud was born a mounted group, 

And of the group one man each eye did fill, 
Spurring ahead of all the sweaty troop. 

CXVI. 

Soon any child within the town could tell 
That Menelaus was the foremost man; 

Quickly he rode into the citadel, 

While all the crowd his broken look did scan. 
And wonder what might be his anxious plan ; 

Then came Presentiment's dark underflow, 
While Rumor wildly raged about, and ran 

Proclaiming tumult, war and overthrow. 



48 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

CXVII. 

All knew without a word why he was there; 

To him was pointed soon far out at sea 
A speck that danced between the wave and air, 

A sparkling sail that lingered laughingly, 

And gave one parting glance in tiny glee, 
Then twinkled out the blue to nothingness ; 

Whereat his eyes, strained to their last degree. 
Broke silent tears that told his deep distress. 

(3XVIII. 

To that same spot had come the Grecian chiefs, 
Speechless they gazed at the retreating sail 

Which left behind in them a world of griefs ; 
It seemed as their own soul began to fail 
And flicker off upon the ship's sea trail; 

But when at last from view the vessel sped. 
They stood not valiant Greeks in coats of mail, 

But bronzed corpses seemed, all standing dead. 

CXIX. 

As rustling leaves break in October dreams. 
When under trees we lie but half asleep, 

And what we are awake blends into gleams 
Of life when it has broken Time's strong keep, 
And of the world beyond we get a peep ; 

So all the Greeks saw through their ghostly stare 
The future deed rise pictured from the deep, 

And sprang at once their armor to prepare. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCENAE. 49 

cxx. 

War ! war ! they shout in wrath — a woeful word 
Which now through Hellas rings from bound to 
bound ; 

War ! war ! the rattling shield and spear are heard ; 
There rises every kind of martial sound, 
War! war! the men in arms spring from the 
ground ; 

What is then lost which all the people seek? 
War! war! they cannot live till it be found, 

Helen must be restored if Greek be Greek. 



Canto Second. 

Ipl^igtma at %nlx$. 

Sacrifice and Rescue. 



(51) 



ABQUMJENT, 

The Greeks are gathered at Axdis for the Trojan ex- 
pedition, hut are kept from sailing by the Winds. These 
form a chorus and sing at intervals through the Canto, 
which has two main portions, whereof the central fig- 
ures are the father and the daughter, respectively. 

I. The first wind-song introduces the reader to the 
scene at Axdis, where there is much contention among 
the Greeks. The characters of the old Greek chieftains 
are given, to tohom a neiu one is added, Palamedes. 
The leader is chosen, the lot falls upon Agamemnon, to 
the great disappointment of Achilles. In his grief he 
communes vnth his Goddess- Mother, Thetis, who bids 
him stay with the Greeks and endure. Agamemnon 
in his new-born insolence seeks the chase, and slays a 
fawn, sacred to the Virgin- Goddess, Diana (^Artemis') ; 
he wantonly violates virginity, lohich is the law of the 
Goddess and thereby incurs her wrath. TJie Winds now 
sing their song of vengeance, and detain the fleet; 
Calchas, the Soothsayer, interprets them, and declares 
that Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter on the 
altar of the Goddess. The Leader refuses at first, and 
tries to sail out of the bay, but the Winds again rise and 
(52) 



sing a more furious song. Agamemnon noio yields and 
is ready to sacrifice his child. (/ — XXX.) 

//. Meamohile Iphigenia has started from Mycenoe 
to visit her father at Aulis. Her journey is described 
as she passes through many famous places, all of tvhich 
have some character in history or legend. She arrives 
at Aulis in the midst of the furious song of the Winds, 
and finds her father in agony, and the tvhole armament 
in an uproar. Calchas, the Priest, sees her and tells 
her she must sacrifice herself for Greece and for the 
restoration of Helen. After a short struggle the maiden 
assents; Achilles sees her and changes from wrath to 
placability — an anticipation of his career at Troy. 
She is led to the temple of the Goddess, tvho saves her, 
but tells her that she must go far off to the barbarous 
world and serve as a priestess. All the Greeks recog- 
nize the greatness and beauty of the sacrifice, feeling 
that it hints something beyond their life. Tliey set sail 
for Troy to rescue Helen, the erring woman, for whom the 
pure woman has given herself. Both Ccdchas, the priest 
and Palamedes, the moralist, recognize in the event 
something beyond their jrrevious "ken. The Winds sing 
their fareioell song of harmony, and help the ships for- 
ward to Troy. (LXX. to the end.") 



(53) 



I. 

List to the Winds and catch their moody lay ! 

Unrestful up and down the strait they blow, 
They meet at Aulis, tumble up the bay, 

They twist the curls of Tritons to and fro, 

And all the fleet without an oar they row. 
No sail can be unfurled, no rope be cast, 

Above the sea-war voices singing low 
Are heard out of the bosom of the blast : 

II. 

«« We blow to the East and West, to the South 
and North, 

Over the water and land unseen we break. 
Around, about, above, below, and back and forth, 

Forever change we are and change we make, 

Eternally the heavy ships we shake, 
The drowsy men we rouse with our commotion, 

We move the deeps for the movement's sake, 
And stir to life anew the ancient Ocean." 

(55) 



56 AGAMEMNON'S DAUQHTEB. 

III. 

Heai' Boreas whistle in his chilly blast! 

Upon the sail he leaves his icy coat ; 
The South wind breathes warm kisses on the mast, 

And sings its passion in a tender rote, 

The ice melts in the ripple to the note, 
And Zephyrus doth come and hw his balm ; 

The waves drop in a trance around the boat. 
The sails are dead, and Aulis in a calm. 

IV. 

So sweep the winged Winds from rage to rest, 
And then from rest they rush to rage again. 

The wave mounts upward to their wild behest, 
Or sleeps in peace beneath their soothing strain, 
With dreams of skies held fast in crystal plain, 

But soon the blasts are loosed, and bring anew 
In wrathful energy their stress and pain. 

For in this world must all receive its due. 

V. 

Now on this windy watery element. 

Where sea-lit Aulis lies along her strand. 

The Greeks were kept, with double purpose rent. 
Whether to bring back Helen to herlantl. 
Or to send home all of their warrior band ; 

Oft had they spoken, yet could not agree, 

Contention rose, whatever might be planned. 

And dashed them round as surges on the sea. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 57 

VI. 

For every madding wind burst out released, 

When but a sail upreared would give a sign ; 
They ran from South and North and West and East 

As if sent on their way by power malign ; 

But when the boats were moored, the sun 
would shine. 
Then all the wise men wondered what it was 

That could the eager ships so long confine ; 
Some said a God and some that Man was cause. 

VII. 

The oldest lord was prudent, white-haired Nestor, 
Words sweeter flowed than honey from his 
tongue : 

The holy priest was Calchas, son of Thestor, 
Who on the voice of God or Goddess hung. 
And knew what every bird in heaven sung; 

Ulysses always deepest wisdom taught. 
Though it might not prevail at first among 

His people, till they took the second thought. 

VIII. 
Ajax had come, the bulky man of brawn, 

Who bore a mighty fortress in his frame; 
Small Menelaus too, whose wrong had drawn 

All Greece to seek revenge for Helen's shame ; 

Young Diomed, a doughty knight who came 
From Argive land, whose fiery soul sought fight; 

Thersites, who had won a bitter name 
Abusing leaders whether wrong or right. 



58 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

IX. 

But Agamemnon was the greatest king, 

Of all the chiefs he had most towns and land, 

And most ambition to the war could bring ; 
Achilles had inborn the Hero's strand, 
Yet not with it the gift of self-command 

Which trains to duty first the rebel soul ; 
Still he would be the leader of the band, 

And all the rest, but not himself, control. 

X. 

Good Palamedes, too, was present there. 

The man who always sought to look at right; 

For beauty he had not a single care, 

Its tender thrill ruled not his sense of sight. 
Whereby his Grecian soul had left him quite. 

They all were gathered now the chief to choose. 
The Argive herald shrill, Talthybius hight, 

Bade silence so that each could tell his views. 

XI. 

King Agamemnon was the first to rise, 
A politician's wiles he knew to life, 

Tears started as he looked up in the skies ; 
*' I think 1 shall go home to my own wife, 
And Helen leave with all this Trojan strife ; 

Our stay at Troy will last for many suns. 
Far, far it lies, with all disaster rife. 

Let us return to home and little ones." 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 59 

XII. 
Broke Palamedes in, the rightful man: 

*' So many faithful wives why should we leave, 
For that one faithless Argive wife who ran 

Away from husband, leaving him to grieve, 

And tell the time in tears without reprieve ! 
I say she hath not won a goodly fame ; 

And shall we every household now bereave 
For her who boldly threw away her name? 

XIII. 

«' She went with Paris of her own free-will^ 
Though she may blame the Goddess for the 
deed ; 

The stain upon her life remaineth still, 
Although she seek to hide it in a creed. 
And make divine whatever may mislead; 

The woman who is led by Aphrodite's word. 
Or shall for guilt the Paphian power plead. 

Must first herself by harlotry be stirred. 

XIV. 

" I shall not quit my home for such a jade. 
And leave to sigh and sorrow all mine own ; 

Perish the oaths to Tyndarus we made ! 

By breaking them is now the strong man shown, 
I shall do so, although I stand alone. 

O Helen, for thine ills what deadly cure ! 
Thou art not worth this solitary moan, 

For thee distained we shall not give the pure." 



60 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XV. 

Then forward sprang to speuk young Diomed, 

Within his eyes the flint kept striking fire, 
And sparkles threw with every word he said, 

Whereby that word did drop red-hot with ire. 

Yet had a music in it as a lyre 
When burn harmonic ardors in the strings. 

Attuned to song aflame from warlike choir. 
When it the blood-beat of the battle sings. 

XVI. 

*' I say, let us at once sweep forth to Troy, 

For Helen give our lives in valor's glee; 
Without her glance the world hath not one joy. 

The all-in-all of all our hearts is she ; 

What's wife and child, what's all that is to be. 
If fairest Helen must a captive sigh? 

What then am I myself in verity. 
If I the Greek cannot for Helen die? " 

XVII. 

Whereat the Greeks sent up a mighty shout. 
That rose an unseen mountain to the skies, 

For each one heard the very word spoke out, 
Which in his heart had struggled hard to rise 
From that dim lake where speech unbodied lies ; 

Then stood Ulysses forth who knew the dutiful, 
Well he deserved to be entitled wise. 

Though wisdom coined he not into the beautiful. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 61 

XVIII. 

" A wife and babe I too at home have left, 

Telemachus and true Penelope, 
But of them both I am this day bereft. 

Unless through Troy I bring them back to me, 

And raze that hold of Greek captivity. 
If I shall win them, Helen is the cost. 

In her the one, all wives we must set free. 
And in her loss, behold, we all are lost." 

XIX. 

No shout the Greeks gave wise Ulysses' speech, 
For by them he was hardly understood ; 

His thoughts flew high in air beyond their reach, 
And yet they somehow felt his words were good. 
Except Thersites, of the scoffers' brood ; 

He turned grave wisdom mto ridicule. 
He railed at Helen and all womanhood. 

And made the world just like himself — a fool. 

XX. 

*' The game in this whole war is love," he said, 
*' The love of Trojan booty is the main; 

Yet if the love of Helen tickles Diomed, 

Why then should I and other Greeks be slain 
For that one woman, vainest of the vain? 

But we are told in one to see the all, 

Such misty music is our wise man's strain ; 

So be it — in Helen see each woman's fall." 



62 AGAMEMNON' iS UAUGUTEli. 

XXI. 

Then Nestor rose ami caught from him the word. 
And tore from it the lie in knavery wrapped ; 

The old man's voice the people gladly heard, 
He after wise Ulysses spoke, and capped 
Dim wisdom with some shining legend apt. 

Or story taken from his far-off youth, 

Telling a wondrous tale that deeply lapped 

In folds of rich romance the wise man's truth. 

XXTI. 

High sounded the applause of Grecians, for 
He called them back from scorn to their own 
heart, 

In sweetest tones of silvery orator, 
And many turns delicious of his art, 
Yet flashing wisdom out of every part. 

The aged man sat down, a youth arose 

Whose single glance made all the people start 

The battle cry, as if to charge their foes. 

XXIII. 
It was Achilles who in splendor came, 

The noblest form of all the Grecian host. 
Each muscle was athirst for glorious fame 

In tear-worn war, whatever be the cost; 

But the great world in his own self was lost ; 
He knew who was the Hero, his name could call, 

A name on fleeting Time to be engrossed. 
All men were there for him, not he for all. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 63 



XXIV. 



Yet he had nobler strands within his breast, 
Which Cheiron, wisest teacher, raised to day ; 

Of music's concord was his soul possessed, 
He well could touch the lyric chords in play. 
And sing heroic deeds in lofty lay, 

Till fired by his own strains he soared above 
And found a tuneful sphere, where every way 

Led unto harmony and human love. 

XXV. 

But Cheiron's lesson was now well forgot, 

The Hero sought the army's chieftaincy, 
He was for fairest Helen, yet was not. 

But for his own fair deed that was to be ; 

He rose to speak, the entire company. 
Rapt with his beauty, whispered each to other: 

" He is the man for all supremacy. 
Godlike his shape, a Goddess is his mother. 

XXVI. 

** See but the motion of his hand — what joy ! 

It pours within us more than Bacchic stream ; 
For him now could we take another Troy, 

More beautiful than Helen is that gleam, 

With our last breath we would his life redeem, 
If he a captive were as she is now, 

Of gloried Hercules he comes the dream. 
The ray divine is flashing from his brow." 



64 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

XXVII. 

Quick words of short contempt Achilles shot: 
" Let us no more in useless speech debate 

Whether the woman shall be restored or not, 
But let us choose a chief at any rate, 
Then can I tell what is to be her fate 

When I shall see our leader and his might, 
If he be merely first in wealth and state, 

Or he who in the front rank best can fight." 

XXVIII. 

Ulysses seized the helm with lots, and prayed : 
*' O Zeus, put the right man in the right place ! 

Let body's might be not our ruler made, 
Lest brawny arm take all for its own grace, 
And smite both rule and reason down apace! " 

The Greeks with wise Ulysses prayed the prayer, 
When Agamemnon's lot leaped out the case 

Of brilliant bronze into the eager air. 

XXIX. 

Achilles turned in silent wrath aside, 

Back to his sylvan home he thought to go. 

In Aulis he would not one day abide, 

But leave ungrateful Grecians to their woe. 
Who were not able their best man to know ; 

He went alone along the ridged sand, 
His tears into the sea began to flow, 

And swell the waves that strook in peace the 
strand. 



irniGENIA AT AULIS. 65 

XXX. 

" Ah why was I not born of slaves a slave, 

"Why was heroic heart put in my breast, 
To be the scorn of every subtle knave, 

And from the struggle never to have rest? 

O mother Thetis, mount thy billows' crest. 
And tell why thou, divine, hast brought me forth, 

Me Goddess-born, to be by time distressed. 
By men to be cast out as nothing worth ! ' ' 

XXXI. 

Therewith he flung a tear into the brine. 

Which heaved to meethimlike a mother'sheart; 

A thousand hands above the waves did shine, 
And reach out to him there as to impart 
Some touch of balm to soothe his fiery smart; 

And all the sea became a sea of light, 

While from the ripples' break soft tones did 
start 

And turn to speech just at the margent white. 

XXXII. 

" My son, I hear thee weeping at my shore, 
Would it were the lasttear that thou wilt shed ! 

Thy honor yet will be neglected more. 

And contumely's dart will pierce thy head. 
Until thou liest cold among the dead. 

Thy lot it is by men of little worth, 

To be misprized, till thy full time be sped; 

This is the badge of thy heroic birth. 

5 



66 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXXIIl. 

" Gods, pity me, the mother of but one, 

Who is so great that he must early die ; 
Could I have borne a weak, ignoble son, 

Then mine had been a blest maternity. 

Yet wherefore am I mother but to cry ? 
And wherefore am I Goddess but to bear 

The sorrows of the world upon my sigh ? 
Oh stay, my son, it is thy mother's prayer." 

XXXIV. 

Therewith she rose above the mighty mere, 
Her son she kissed as the great waters drave, 

And with her own she washed away his tear. 
Yet with her breath divine endurance gave 
Of the heroic pang, which stills the grave. 

Up with her rose the Ocean many-tressed, 
Who fitted to her form his yielding wave, 

And with her clasped the Hero's shaggy breast. 

XXXV. 

With one embrace she sank down in the main, 

The struo-o-ling waters rested from their coil. 
Peace spread on billows blue afar her train. 

And busy ripples turned back to their toil ; 

Achilles felt no more his bosom's broil, 
When he had heard his loving mother's speech; 

He traced strange thoughts upon the sandy soil, 
And picked up gorgeous shells along the beach. 



IFHIGENIA AT AULIS. 67 

XXXVI. 

Proud Agamemnon sat within his tent, 

The Chieftains flocked the newest man to greet, 

And many costly presents to him sent 

Of golden beakers, tripods, vestments meet 
For body, bed, for stool beneath his feet ; 

It was a wild exultant gathering 

That surged around to knee the royal seat. 

And loud proclaimed a God to be the king. 

XXXVII. 

The Leader deigns to deem himself a God, 
Himself to be above all guilt he deems, 

And of man's punishment to bear the rod, 

Dire Ate feeds his heart with all her dreams, 
And insolence from every action gleams. 

E'en royal courtesy is throned on pride; 
No limit to his will to have he seems. 

Not Zeus, but he Olympus doth bestride. 

XXXVIII. 

Full early in the morn he seeks the chase. 
To vent in wildest sport his wanton mood. 

To hunt instead of men the sylvan race. 
When suddenly he comes to Dian's wood. 
Which on a hill not far from Aulis stood ; — 

A sacred spot, that was encircled round 
With walls and hedges, woven to exclude 

All trespass from the hidden holy ground. 



68 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

IXL. 

Within the close were many pretty fawns, 
That cropped the leaves with kisses delicate, 

Or played in coyish pleasantry on lawns, 
Without the dream of hairy horned mate, 
All to the purest Goddess dedicate. 

It was a spot where none with stained thought 
Might enter in the pearl-embosomed gate; 

The very air breathed innocence untaught. 

XL. 

But Agamemnon knew no sacred bound, 
Desire had now become his only law. 

He leaped the wall and sprang upon the ground, 
The fairest fawn within the grove he saw, 
And there he smote her with goat- footed paw, 

As if he were a satyr of the wood ; 

Deep in her tender heart sunk down the claw. 

And o'er her body white was written blood. 

XLI. 

The heart-struck fawn ran off unto the fane 
Spilling her virgin drops with helpless shriek ; 

Along the grass was trailed a purple stain. 

Which burned the greenest sod to a sere streak, 
And called on Mother Earth revenge to wreak. 

To altar of the Goddess pure she fled. 

And gave one piteous look of prayer meek. 

Then fell down at the feet of Dian, dead. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 69 

XLII. 

At once the sky was clipped in blackest wrath, 
Amid the trees leaped red the ragged fire, 

The heavens everywhere portended scath. 
As if they sought to make the world a pyre, 
And singe it to a crisp with lightnings dire; 

The thunder chain, with dreadful links of sound, 
Clanked on the flaming air with wrong afire. 

And dragged fleet molten fetters on the ground. 

XLIII. 

The timid fawns had scampered through the grove. 
With terror of the time their bodies shook, 

Through hiding thicket one by one they strove, 
Or huddled in a mass within a nook. 
Around they dared not for a moment look ; 

It seemed as if the Goddess coukl not shield 
Her innocents along the forest brook, 

But must to ruthless ravager them yield. 

XLIV. 

The Leader knew at once what he had done. 
He hurried pale from forest to the fleet, 

The glance of Goddess there he thought to shun ; 
He ordered all the chiefs betimes to meet, 
And bring aboard the armament complete : 
"Aboard, Aboard, I shall no more delay. 
Seize hold the oar, hoist to the wind the sheet, 

And strike the foamy wave to-day, to-day." 



70 AGAMEMNON' S DAUQLiTEE. 

XLV. 

The people deeply wondered, but obeyed; 

Like ants they swarmed along the shelving 
shore, 
And not a moment in their task delayed; 

They dragged the ships down to the water hoar 

With shouts that capped the hill-tops in a roar ; 
They cut in haste the hawser from the land, 

Then rose to smite the salt sea with the oar, 
And thought to leave at once old Aulis' strand. 

XLVI. 
But when the air had heard one lusty stroke, 

It madly changed into a furious blast ,• 
Each sail did seem the wind-god to provoke, 

So that he stripped it from the reeling mast, 

And its white tatters in the sea did cast ; 
The Furies of the air would hiss and howl. 

The Demons of the sea would scurry past, 
And furrow its calm face with gloaming scowl. 

XLVII. 

The wrathful Winds again were heard to sins; : 
" The man shall not escape, the guilty man; 

We come, we come, his wicked deed we bring, 
Our hands have been at work since Time began , 
We keep upright the world the Gods did plan, 

The blast on sea and land is but our speed 
The hidden wrong from out the earth to ban, 

We spirits are that blow to man his deed." 



IPEIQENIA AT AULIS. 71 

XLVIII. 

Thus in a chorus dolorous they sang, 

With its vast bass of waters chimed the deep, 
The skies attuned thereto with thunder rang, 

Long rocky hands would catch the keel, and 
keep 

It fast on shoals, or hurl it on the steep ; 
Soon every ship put back into the bay ; 

Then would the Winds begin to fall asleep, 
Or mid the masts low notes of guilt to play. 

XLIX. 

And every Grecian soul amazed did ask : 

** Why do the Gods to us opposed stand? 
For it is they who stop us from our task 

Fair Helen's wrong to quit with vengeful hand. 

Some unseen crime is lurking in the land. 
Innocent blood its curses on us wreaks, 

The culprit must be found, his guilt be banned. 
Although he be the first man of the Greeks." 

L. 

Then sounded through the multitude of masts 
The voice of strong Talthybius herald shrill ; 

It sent a shudder like the shrieking blasts, 
And made the host that felt its keenness, chill 
With fearful bodements of a coming ill ; 

To the assembly all the Grecians throng 
To hear what is the word divine, while still 

The Winds, at parting, lisp a sigh of wrong. 



72 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGUTEB. 

LI. 
Then Calchas, holy Priest, the first arose. 

The darkness was transparent to his view, 
He kenned the will of Gods and of their foes, 

How the great Universe is ruled he knew. 

How man in it is governed saw he too, 
Upon his heart the law was deeply writ. 

His eye shone sunlike looking on the True, 
The world he saw not, but the God in it, 

LH. 
The brook he heard not but the Nymph therein, 

The roar of skies wouldspeak to him of Jove ; 
So he had heard the Winds beneath their din 

Announce the deed that wronged the Gods 
above. 

And had on Earth below slain human love; 
He was the only man in all the fleet 

Who knew the voice in which the tempest strove. 
And could its very words to men repeat. 

LHI. 
Beside the will of Gods to him was known 

The human soul, which he could clearly scan 
When it in darkest depths was left alone 

With guilt, by Gods forsaken and by man. 

By all the lightnings pierced of its own ban 5 
He looked in it and saw the deep disease, 

Straightway he sought to carry out the plan 
Whereby to give to it the sweet release. 



inilGENIA AT AULIS. 73 

LIV. 

Such was of holy priest the greatest gift : 
He sought the errant spirit to reclaim, 

The burden from the breaking heart to lift, 
To bring atonement for all wicked blame, 
And new existence give and a new name ; 

The guilty life he could far down unroll, 
And take the evil strain from out its frame, 

And reconcile with Gods the cast-off soul. 

LV. 

He spake a speech that all the host could hear: 
" I tell what Zeus and mine own soul command, 

Although my sharp rebuke shall smite the ear 
Of highest man in all the Grecian band: 
Ye sail away unto the Trojan Land 

Wrong to avenge, and yet that very wrong 
At Aulis has been done with wanton hand ; 

Now Helen's injuries to Greeks belong. 

LVI. 

'* A fawn devote to virgin Artemis 
Is lying slain within her holy ground ; 

The guilt of Paris, I proclaim, is his 

Who did the lustful deed, and made a wound 
On innocence which would all Troy astound ; 

Think not the Gods will pass in us offense 

For which they shall the Trojan town confound ; 

They punish in us too its insolence. 



74 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LVII. 

" Our deities are high because the rods 

They bear for all who shall their law transgress ; 

Greek wrong is punished hardest by Greek Gods 
For deed of guilt give ye to them redress, 
Impartial is their wrath, their blessedness ; 

If they have judgment sent against proud Troy, 
By that same judgment now they send us stress 

Of winds, whereof take heed lest they destroy. 

LVIII. 

*' A contradiction is of Gods the hate. 
They will not long abide discordancy ; 

That man they leave unhelped to vengeful fate. 
Who seeketh not from guilt himself to free. 
And to bring back his life to harmony ; 

By sacrifice alone can he be rid 

Of wrongful deed, whose ruth he feels when he 

Does to himself what he to others did. 

LIX. 

<' O Leader brave, thou hast a daughter dear, 
A virgin pure as is the sky-born snow ; 

I cannot speak the word without a tear — 
The Goddess bids thy child to be laid low 
Upon her altar with the axe's blow; 

The Winds will never cease from out the skies 
To pour upon the fleet their blasts of woe, 

Till with the fawn thy bleeding daughter lies. 



irniGENIA AT AULIS. 75 

LX. 

*' If to the Gods for all thou wilt her lend, 

Thou wilt thyself of thine own wrong redeem, 
For thou hast taken back thy deed to mend, 

And plucked it from the penalty supreme ; 

True leadership will out thine action beam, 
When for thy land thou yieldest dearest ties ; 

And the new Helen will restored gleam 
Through thine own daughter and her sacrifice." 

LXI. 

So spake the holy Priest, Avho truly saw 
In all its deeps what lies in human deed ; 

But Agamemnon spurned the sacred law 

And cursed the spotless man who said the creed : 
"Thou sordid Priest! I know thy calling's 
greed, 

'Tis gold that buys thy word, somebody's gold. 
Who is mine enemy ; the Gods take heed 

Through thee on pelf and power to keep their 
hold. 

LXIL 

*' Thy subtle priestly craft shall not rule me. 

Although thou make weak men in fear opine 
Thy will to be the will of deity; 

My own sweet will is just as good as thine. 

And I believe it is quite as divine. 
Nay more divine, for I have power. — The oar 

Now lift again, O Greeks, and smite the brine 
For Troy, our injured Helen to restore." 



76 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGIJTEB. 

LXIII. 

The men went down into their ships once more, 
And stirred unwilling waves with busy blade, 

But soon they heard approach a wild uproar 
From out a cloud wherein the flashes played 
So fast that every seaman was dismayed ; 

And suddenly the Winds smote in a throng 
The sails to ragged shrouds of gloomy shades. 

Singing a new and more destructive song ; 

LXIV. 

" We come, again we come, and thrice we come, 
With treble howl, around, above, below; 

We burn with blast of fire, with cold benumb, 
The man, the man, the guilty man we know, 
For him we come to-day, for him we blow, 

We are the Fates, we are the Furies too, 

We cleanse the earth with death as round we go, 

What guilty man has done, to him we do." 

LXV. 

Forth rushed the AVinds, at first with sudden kiss, 

As if a parting lover in his hurry ; 
But soon they changed into a dreadful hiss. 

And on the sea and shore would skip and 
skurry ; 

A thousand airy serpents seemed to worry 
The mortal man and strike with unseen fang; 

At last the Winds rose in one mighty flurry. 
And, rushing on the ships, again they sang : 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 77 

LXVI. 

'* Twice, twice, to-day have we with shrilly lay 

To Aulis come and sung amid the fleet ; 
Our first was gay and chimed a changeful play; 

The second moved to a far deeper beat, 
Ha ha ! but you were saved by quick retreat ; 

The third time we are here with curse more 
savage. 
Ha ha ! 'tis vengeance whistling in the sheet ! 

We come ! we come ! hear now our song of 
ravage ! " 

LXVH. 

Then ship on ship was driven in the clamor, 
Men fell into the wave and rose no more, 

Over the water flared a lurid glamour, 

As damned phantoms smote the sea and shore, 
And every sail from mast and halyard tore : 

The ships could scarce escape the crackling flame 
Which out the belly of the Winds upbore, 

By fleeing back to Aulis whence they came. 

LXVHI. 

The first to put about into the bay. 
Was Agamemnon, palsied at the sign 

Which Gods had shown to him of their own way ; 
He sent at once for Calchas, man divine. 
To break the spell of that great might malign, 

He fell down by the Priest with heavy groans. 
Yet his new life through tears began to shine, 

As he with soothed Winds did mingle moans : 



78 AGAME3IN0N'S DAUGHTER. 

LXIX. 

" Zeus, Father, must I sacrifice my daughter ! 

Of womanhood the tender blooming: rose ! 
The sweetest flower of my life I thought her ; 

What then have I to live for if she goes? 

Help, Calchas, stroke thy hand along my 
throes ; 
Thine eye bids me to think myself a King; 

I am a King — the Leader here bestows 
His daughter and himself an offering." 

LXX. 

Meantime Mycense gay its song had lost, 
The dance had ceased and merry festival ; 

In place of joy its hearts were sorrow-tossed, 
The mother, wife, the little children all 
Oft gathered lonely on the city wall 

To gaze for messenger or ship afar; 

No voice was heard but woman's cry or call. 

For every man had gone to tearful war. 

LXXI. 

No word from Aulis came, they cannot hear 
What is the reason of so long delay; 

Iphigenia thinks without a fear 
A visit to her noble sire to pay. 
Ere he to distant Troy be gone away ; 

Out of the Lions' Gate she drove her team 
Of mules that shook the sweaty yoke all day. 

Up hill and down, and by the rippling stream. 



IPIIIGENIA AT AULIS. 79 

LXXII. 

Her chariot first ran through the stony glen, 
Where once the Gods and Titans fought their 
fight 

In ages hoar, then left it unto men ; 

She saw rocks hurled with superhuman might, 
And dark chaotic powers put to flight 

Long long ago, when first this sunny world 
Of Grecian Gods dawned gleaming on the sight, 

And gloomy deities to Tartarus whirled. 

LXXIII. 

And then she went through silent piney dells. 
Where she would hardly dare her breath to hear. 

Lest she disturb the spirit that indwells 

The oak, the bubbling spring, the lonely weir. 
Or skims high woodlands like a star in fear; 

The Hamadryad's lightest lisp she heard, 
As it would vanish on a gossamer, 

And oft she caught and kept its dying word. 

LXXIV. 

The women of each village hugged her path, 
With babe at breast and children at the dress, 

A kindly look and speech for all she hath. 
Their husbands were at Aulis in the stress. 
And they could see ahead long wretchedness ; 

True wives, they sent by her some word or token, 
To those they loved, whom they in faithfulness 

Must give for that one wife whose faith was 
broken. 



80 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGHTER. 

LXXV. 

Past Ephyre's high breast she quickly rides, 
Whose city lies between Poseidon's knees, 

While Aphrodite's foam laves both its sides, 
And Acrocorinthus stops the stirring breeze, 
Until it swoons away amid the trees 

To soft Idalian kisses round a shrine; 

Through that lax luscious air the maiden flees, 

And touches not her lip to Corinth's wine. 

LXXVI. 

She rests not till she comes unto the bound 
Which sends her high up to a mountain land, 

Where ancient fable sported with the sound 
Of sweetest minstrelsy, or chanson grand, 
Hymning the mighty gests of Hero's hand. 

One path she shuns where Theseus of yore 
With stolen Helen fled along the strand, 

The Trojan deed presaging long before. 

LXXVH. 

From heights she passed into a fruitful dale, 

Which fluttered everywhere with silvery leaves 
Of Olives, changing sunlight to a pale 

Moonlight that with the treetops interweaves ; 

Like sobbing heart afar the orchard heaves ; 
Women are there culling the fruit alone. 

Yet each looks up at passing team, and leaves 
Her task awhile to think of some one gone. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 81 

LXXVIII. 
To plain of Ceres then the maiden drove, 

Where the broad land springs into yellow corn, 
At hidden tender touch of Goddess' love, 

As if out of the earth the golden morn 

With a new sun were of a sudden born ; 
O'er all was felt the sacred mystery 

Of man, who also springs from night forlorn 
To day, till he again in night shall lie. 

LXXIX. 

Through many a grove of plaintain and of myrtle, 

Over Kephis^us' gentle element, 
To voice of nightingale and Attic turtle. 

Mid strains of seas and skies and mountains 
blent, 

Royally into Athena's town she went; 
From Pallas' hill she looked far on the sea, 

Unto its very bound her glance she sent, 
And saw the empire there which was to be. 

LXXX. 

The Muses sang around her their own rule, 

As she did loiter on their sacred hill, 
Where was intoned the note of every school 

Which hath through Time's deep bosom sent 
its thrill 

Of harmony — mind's cunning, hand's skill ; 
Then looked she to the East and saw the proud 

High threat the Greek horizon darkly fill. 
But soon the Attic sun smote through the cloud. 



82 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXI. 

Over the radiant hills to Marathon 

She darts as if she held Apollo's ways, 

There on a plain she saw that Attic sun 

From skies descend transfigured in a blaze, 
"Which all the earth illumined with its rays ; 

A little village glowed within the sunset crest, 
As drew to end the greatest day of days, 

And turned down Grecian hills into the West. 

LXXXII. 

Another note was sung in Marathon 

Mid golden cornfields leaping from their grave ; 
She stopped along the sea when day was done. 

She heard the never-ending waters rave, 

And thought, Will Asia ever cross this wave 
To Greece, as now to Troy we Grecians go? 

Such deeds bring forth their like, however 
brave ; 
O who shall break this endless chain of Avoe! 

LXXXIII. 

She came to Rhamnus, town of ancient fane, 
The home of Nemesis, the Goddess hoar 

Whose blow requites on man his action's bane! 
No rest she found, she quit the temple door. 
And hurried past unto the lonely shore, 

Where of that Titaness she might be free. 
Whose furious word is vengeance evermore ; 

Sweet peace she found beside the yielding sea. 



JPHIOENIA AT AULIS. 83 

LXXXIV. 

All day her chariot wound about the bank. 
Whose sunny path the whitest pebbles pave, 

To smiling stillness the wide waters sank 
Before the presence of the maiden brave, 
Or rose in ripples mild her feet to lave, 

When she would walk along the beached sea ; 
Oft tresses of the Nymphs w^ould float the wave, 

Then melt into the blue transparency. 

LXXXV. 

As Aulis rises slowly into view, 

She hears the angry bustle of the blast, 

She sees the waves swell up with trouble new ; 
And drive within her sight a slivered mast. 
Which breakers smite, till it on land be cast; 

Then reeling ships she spies, which seamen row. 
In secret nooks they huddle all aghast, 

As if to shun a second hidden blow. 

LXXXVI. 

Iphigenia rode in peaceful mood 

Deeper and deeper to the storm's fierce heart. 
Where lone within his tent her father stood. 

Whose tears at sight of her began to start. 

And ashen quiverings of pain to dart 
Through chorded limbs, tense in the bitter strain ; 

Then would he seek suppression of the smart, 
Grow calm apace, till tears fell down again. 



84 AGAMEMXON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXVII. 

*' What is it that so pains thee, father dear? 

What winds are those I heard not long ago? 
I see that thou art struggling with a tear ; 

Those blasts still threaten as they whirl and 
blow 

Far out upon the sea, where now they go ; 
Their biting edge I touched upon my way, 

Still I in thee can feel their afterthroe ; 
What is thy sorrow? Let me its pang allay." 

LXXXVIII. 

While yet she spake, the captains one by one 

Dropped in to speak a word unto the chief ; 
They viewed the maid who soon all hearts had won , 

Yet not by love like Helen, but by grief; 

Fair words they spake of deep regard but brief, 
They felt the awe, and in her look could see 

All time before them pass, like falling leaf 
Which drops to earth, and leaves the heavens free. 

LXXXIX. 

Achilles, too, had sought the Leader's tent, 
To bid a grim good-bye to chieftains there ; 

He looked upon the maiden's face, he went 
Not forth, but on him settled unaware 
A distant view of something more than fair. 

Than Honor worthier, higher than Glory, 
He wandered with it far up in the air, 

While it to him alone told all its story. 



IPHIQENIA AT AULIS. 85 

xc. 

He said unto himself: *' I now must cliange, 
Old Cheiron never could have taught me this, 

He never could have shown the vision strange 
Now shown by simple maid, a little miss, 
Whose face doth look the very God's in bliss ; 

To me her glance is more than Helen's glance, 
Henceforth its guidance I shall not dismiss. 

Its spell may yet my deepest hours entrance." 

XCI. 

Then Calchas came, he scarce could hide his moan. 
He hinted that he had a word to say apart. 

And when he spake unto the maid alone. 
The parting of his lips cleft to his heart : 
* ' I must speak forth the word with all its smart : 

That ill winds cease to blow, and fair ones rise 
To bear the Grecian fleet to Troy, thou ar.t 

To be to Artemis the sacrifice. 

XCH. 

" That Helen may be saved, thou art to die. 
The pure must give itself for the distaiued. 

It is the world's last law, which to defy 

Is breach for which the man will be arraigned 
Before that court where justice is not feigned ; 

Shun wrong of shirking what is on thee laid; 
Innocence lost by guilt, is then regained, 

When the pure soul its offering is made. 



86 agaml\\ino:n'S daughtkb. 

XCIII. 

"In Troy's own wickedness we Greeks are strong ; 

The Goddess now demands our highest meed; 
Then only may we right the Trojan wrong, 

When we ourselves the way to right may lead; 

We can avenge another's wrongful deed, 
Not till that deed out of our heart is burned ; 

Never can we take Troy till we are freed 
Of Troy's own guilt, and to ourselves returned. 

XCIV. 
*' From Zeus supreme comes down one great be- 
hest 

That good men owe themselves unto the bad ; 
Else were they hardly good, and never blest 

Through the high suffering that pure and glad 

Maketh all hearts by making them so sad ; 
Above fair Helen will thy beauty rise. 

Thy land in thee its rescue will have had. 
And the whole world in thee its sacrifice." 

xcv. 

So spake the holy Priest, a noble man. 

Who wrought not for himself, for all he 
wrought; 

The Future in the Now he well could scan, 
That which must be forever, was his thought. 
And that was what he to his people taught ; 

Yet truest Greek he was, most true of all. 
What Hellas was to time itself he sought. 

Not to the East he looked, not to Troy's fall. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 87 

XCVI. 

But in the West he saw futurity 

Grow out the deed of heavy suffering, 

Saw a new world rise out the farthest sea, 
And a new Hellas in it upward spring. 
And to mankind afresh its blessing^ brinjj: 

Far-off dim visions and blest auguries, 
Snatches of song he heard the poets sing, 

Hymning in ages late the sacrifice. 

XCVH. 
His was no cruel speech but tender grace, 

With every word his own great heart was rent. 
And if he could he would have ta'en her place, 

For her endured the bitter punishment ; 

Into her sorrow was his soul so blent 
That she could nought but his sweet presence bless, 

As his strong thought into her breast he sent 
Armed with his pity and tender-heartedness. 

XCVHI. 
Thus sighed she answer to the holy Priest : 

" Oh must I die, who love my life, so young? 
And must I now be slaughtered like a beast 

At the blest shrine to which I oft have clung, 

When with the pain of life I have been stung? 
Have mercy on me. Goddess, hope is spilt — 

The howling winds through all the shores have 
sung 
The strain of vengeance for some hidden guilt. 



88 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTEB. 

XCIX. 

" But ah ! the more men need to be set free; 

If they were guiltless, they no help would need ; 
What is life good for, but to give it thee? 

To keep it for myself is but a greed, 

To yield it up makes of it fruitful seed ; 
Here take it, I give the last of earthly joys. 

This bloom tear from my cheek, and let me 
bleed. 
Guide me to the altar's ax — it is my choice." 

C. 

Achilles came and looked, a changed man, 
He hears what he before had never heard ; 

He saw his life anew and made its plan, 
To bitter sacrifice he too is stirred 
By that sole thrill of tender maiden's word; 

His mien superb becomes her humble thrall. 
Now his heroic sword he will engird, 

To fight not for his glory, but for all. 

CI. 

*' Ah me ! I know I am short-lived by fate, 

But I prefer to die as thou wilt die ; 
If I should stay at home I might live late. 

And pass my days without a single sigh ; 

But I shall equal thee in destiny, 
And give myself in bond to sharpest woe, 

For thee I shall my very wrath deny, 
Be placable to friend, and e'en to foe." 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 89 

CII. 

So thought Achilles then, when he had seen 
In wonderment of love that spirit staid ; 

But on the Trojan plain in quarrel keen 
Hereafter will forget the vow he made, 
And turn to wrath that will not soon be laid, 

Unmindful of his country, friends, and cause. 
For vanished is the image of the maid ; 

Dark lines through his bright fame a Fury draws. 

cm. 

Yet memory of her afresh will live 

When he doth weep o'er dear Patroclus slain : 
He, rueful, will his Grecian foe forgive. 

Now softened by the mighty mass of pain; 

Yet to forgetfulness will fall again 
And her sweet image blot in Trojan strife ; 

Then will compassion cleanse at last that stain, 
And give to Priam old both son and life. 

CIV. 
Rumor went buzzing through the gathered 
Greeks, 

It told the sacrifice of high deffree. 
Whose blood would end delay of many weeks. 

And bring fair winds upon a tranquil sea, 

Yet fetching too the fierce fatality. 
Their hearts were torn, it was a time of wail, 

Low words they moaned of crushed anxiety, 
That day all wished the fleet might never sail. 



AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

cv. 

Still the Euboic hills detained the sun, 

Who threw upon their peaks his last of light 

For that one day, and then his course was done; 
In silence flew the silken wings of night, 
To brush out of the skies the cloudlets bright, 

And tinted films hung high on heaven's way; 
Then sank into the mist the mountain height. 

And twilight poured its flood on Aulis' bay. 

CVI. 

Meantime they bore the maiden to the shrine, 
Which lay upon a knoll within a wood ; 

There Calciias led her through a weeping line 
Of massive men who round her pathway stood, 
To see the highest worth of womanhood; 

The hearts of all burst out in tearful rue, 
As they beheld in her what was the good. 

And made the vow to her they would be true. 

evil. 

The fair white fane of marbled Artemis 
A smile into the twilight seemed to throw; 

From its fond pillars flowed a silent kiss 

Which showered love around the deed of woe. 
As there in flight of stone she grasped her bow 

To save a fleeing fawn from savage chase; 
She touched the arrow in a sacred glow. 

The very marble lit up in her face. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 91 

CVIII. 

Within the door the maiden disappears, 
A cloud descends and fills the holy space. 

And for a moment sheds its gentle tears, 
Till every leaf and grass-blade in the place 
Hath on it one pure drop of sorrow's grace, 

And bends to let it fall upon the ground, 

Which swallows it at once and shows no trace, 

Though leaf and grass, freed from the weight, 
rebound. 

CIX. 
But soon with ragged rent is pierced the cloud. 

And through it looks the silver-shining moon, 
Which softly floods the melancholy crowd. 

And to a music sweet doth them attune. 

While they quite sink away into its swoon ; 
It drives far off the night with the dark cloud, 

And out the air into her lunar noon 
The Goddess stepped at once and spake aloud : 

ex. 

** Thy time is full, thee have I come to save. 
As promised in Mycenos from my shrine ; 

Men say I in revenge thy life must have, 
Because thy father slew with heart malign 
The guiltless fawn he knew I loved as mine; 

But no ! the Goddess must not vengeance pay. 
Not death for death can be the law divine. 

Though he slay mine, his shall I never slay. 



92 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CXI. 

" The Gods must not revengeful be to man, 
Else they will not escape his penalty ; 

The Gods must also learn, and learn they can, 
To give up hate, and turn to charity. 
Whereby alone we Gods are whole and free. 

The Greeks shall deem thee dead, with grief be 
racked. 
But sacrifice they shall hereafter see, 

And find the richer blessing for thine act. 

CXII. 
" But to myself I shall now rescue thee, 

I, the mild Goddess dare not take thy blood ; 
Thee shall I bear away to Barbary, 

There in a land remote to do the good. 

Anew the offering for a multitude 
Vaster than all on earth to be now found ; 

The world, all time thy deed will yet include. 
Fur wilt thou pass beyond the Grecian bound. 

CXIII. 

<' This hour auspicious gales begin to blow, 

Helen, the erring one, is to return. 
The armament shall crush the Trojan foe 

Through deed of thine to-day, which men will 
burn 

To imitate, and from a maiden learn 
To offer life for land and family ; 

With Helen home, thou too wilt homeward turn, 
And Greece, once saved, is saved again by thee." 



JPHIQENIA AT AULIS. 93 



CXIV. 



The moon has fled with night, and timid rays 
Of rosy dawn into the heavens rise ; 

While in the woods a godlike presence prays, 
Soft hymns of triumph float up to the skies, 
Bearing aloft a world of harmonies ; 

The Greeks rush to the fane to hear the word, 
The ax unbloody on the altar lies. 

The maid is gone, and naught of her is heard. 

cxv. 

Astonied they all stand at plan divine ; 

But see, there is another wonder new : 
The fawn that dead was lying at the shrine. 

Rose up to sudden life before their view. 

And to its perfect strength at once it grew ; 
Unharmed through all the gazing crowd it flees, 

No stains upon the grass it now doth strew. 
And soon from sight is lost amid the trees, 

CXVI. 

A wave of silent sorrow sways the host, 

No heart so dumb but feels the common pain ; 

They would have spared her death at any cost. 
But somehow felt it was her greatest gain 
And theirs, to die for them without a stain ; 

A universal tear doth make them one — 
One people now, and ready to be slain ; 

By that sole maiden's deed it has been done. 



94 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

CXVII. 

*' This law of deity each man must find, 

Sorrow alone can purify the heart, 
And make it deeply one with its own kind, 

Whereby in all it feels its own keen smart ; 

Charity then comes and draws the dart, 
Compassion cures, yet is the child of pain ; 

The Gods give first a loss, in loving part, 
Whereby to give in turn a greater gain." 

CXVIII. 

Thus Calchas first that solemn silence broke, 
As in deep thought he out the wood did wend, 

And to the people round him further spoke : 
*' I thouojht the maiden's death to be the end 
To which the Goddess did her power bend ; 

But I the priest must learn a lesson late 

Through this dear maid, that Gods must not 
offend 

By vengeance, but be themselves compassionate.*' 

CXIX. 

Then Palamedes spoke, the rightful man : 

" I too have learned the lesson of this day, 
And a new glimpse have had into the plan 

Of Zeus who over all doth bear the sway; 

In pride of right I spurned the castaway, 
I thought myself so good, her not t'endure ; 

I change, I go to Troy for Helen, and pray, 
For the distained may there I die the pure." 



IPHIGENIA AT AULI8. 95 

cxx. 

AH Grecian hearts are beating to one throb, 

They are one wave of vast humanity, 
With undertone of sigh or secret sob, 

That breaks up from that sympathetic sea ; 

Silent is glory and moral vanity. 
Assemblies are not needed, there is heard 

An inner voice of last authority. 
Which every man obeys without a word. 

CXXI. 

They go down to the beach in quietude. 
The waters rest in calm transparency 

Keiiecting hill and cloud in peaceful mood; 
They go into a thousand ships which lie 
Upon the bay beneath the tranquil sky. 

They touch the pictured deep with muffled oar, 
The silent tear to Hellas says good-bye. 

And drops at thought of seeing it no more. 

CXXII. 

Yet with a heavier sorrow they are fraught, 

A deeper loss than Helen's fills the host, 
Each soul within the fleet has this one thought. 

What's Helen saved with Iphigenia lost? 

What recompense is greater than the cost? 
Unless there be some other restoration 

Beyond fair Helen's, beauty the uttermost 
Will never save itself nor save the nation. 



96 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CXXIII. 

Again the feeling winds begin to blow, 

Not now with vengeful whistle of a squall, 

But piping a delicious music low 

That drives the fleet to its soft tuneful fall , 
Whose long melodious beats the oars enthrall, 

Yet underneath a note of sweet distress 

Sings in the Winds, and tunes the souls of all 

To tender grief akin to blessedness : 

CXXIV. 

*' Oh let us sing our song, our farewell song! 

We too, the blasts, are conquered by the maid ; 
However long we blow, however strong. 

We in that higher harmony are laid 

To which the Gods serene the world have made ; 
Whatever be the time, the clime, the creed, 

Be it the king or slave, the due is paid. 
For pain, for gain, we blow to man his deed." 

cxxv. 

Thus sang the Winds, it was of songs their last 
Nought more they had to sing, their voice w^as 
lost ; 

They breathed their gentle breath on sail and 
mast, 
The ships no longer were by tempest tossed, 
By lightning burned, or frozen fast in frost ; 

Hark now the ripple of the sunny sea, 

As up and down it rocks the parting host! 

Look, there is Troy I Helen, thou must be free. 



Canto Third. 
Service and Release. 



(97) 



ARGUMElsrT. 

Iphigenia is now brought to Tauris, the land of the 
Barbarians, in care of the Hours (^Horce), ivho here 
constitute a chorus, and ivho, according to Homer, open 
and shut Olympus. Tlieir song, soothing, foreicarning , 
runs through the whole Canto, which has tivo chief por- 
tions : first, the mission of the imestess to the Taurians, 
along with the love of Tlioas the King ; secondly, her 
dealings with her crazed brother Orestes, whose coming 
and cure are narrated, and then with King Tlioas, tvho 
is also to be cured. 

I. A description of the loild Taurian land is given. 
Its people make human sacrifices to their deity, they 
disregard all training of body and mind, in con- 
trast with the Greeks. Though longing to return to her 
own country, Iphigenia at once goes to work to trans- 
form land, people and King into all that she is and all 
that Hellas is. She imparts cultivation of the soil and 
mastery of nature; she teaches the old Greek poetry and 
mythology; but above cdl, she inspires the rude Barba- 
rians with humanity. Moreover she trains other 
2V'iestesses like herself, who bring light to the remotest 
corners of that dark world. 

From the beginning, Tlioas, the King of the Barbarians, 
has been in love ivith the beautiful priestess, tvho has to 
shun his advances and thwart Jiis purposes as they in- 
terfere ivith her 2~)riestly vocation, and will, besides, 
(98) 



prevent her return to Greece, which she feels to be cm 
integral part of her great mission. But Thoas, in his 
lorath at the refusal, gives signs of relapsing into his old 
habits of savagery, and she seems about to lose the chief 
fruit of her work, lohen she goes to the shrine of Artemis 
and prays. But the Hours whisper an answer to her 
prayer, that the Gods are doing their part. (/. — LXV. ) 

JI. Meanwhile Orestes, the brother of Iphigenia, has 
arrived from Greece, with his friend Pylades, in 
obedience to an oracle of Apollo, who commanded him 
to bring back his sister. Thus Orestes, it was declared, 
ivould obtain relief from the pursuit of the Furies for 
. having slain his mother. Brother atid sister come 
together in the temple at Tauris, they converse, she learns 
of the fall of Troy, of the death of her father slain by 
her mother, of the death of her mother slain by her 
brother, v:ho now falls dovm in a fit of madness before 
her. Pylades tells her the ambigicous oracle and Iphi- 
genia interprets it, and discovers herself. Orestes hears 
the healing word, and rises from his ft; he is cured of 
revenge, and, hence, of the pursuit of the Furies. 

But scarce has he announced his spirit's restoration, 
tvhen Thoas, mad ivith love and revenge, breaks into 
her presence and threatens all three Greeks ivith death 
according to the Taurian custom. But him too the 
priestess heals; he repents; he sends her to Greece, even 
goes himself to help restore her to her land. So all the 
Barbarians shovj themselves ready to help rescue Hellas 
from its enemies. But Hellas has also an internal 
enemy of ivhom it must now free itself, and ivhose 
ominous strain is heard in the distance. (^LXVI. to 
the end. ) i •>,- /• 

L. Or C 

(00) 



I. 

H:irk ! a new note ! though all the Winds be laid 
Which back to man his guilty action sing! 

O, list, a deeper thiill! Where is the maid 
Who came to Aulis, daughter of the King, 
And gave herself for all an offering? 

Another song ! A sweeter softer strain ! 

That note of love the Heavens seem to bring ! 

Out of the whispering North it falls again : 

II. 

" Tread softly, softly, in our silent round. 
Speed swiftly, swiftly, and the burden bear ; 

Our winged feet must never touch the ground. 
When we have come, we are no longer there, 
What is to be, is evermore our care; 

Softly we tread, as light as breath of flowers, 
Swiftly we speed, unseen upon the air — 

The softly-treading, swiftly-stepping Hours." 

(101) 



102 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

II. 

Far in the north imbedded lies a sea, 

Around whose chilly marge the tempests rave, 

And lash its forests dark of savagery ; 
Upon the dreary shore a lonely cave 
Leans down its ragged mouth to touch the 
wave, 

That sends into the deep recess a moan 
On endless billows, which the lintel lave, 

Or swell to kiss the dome of drooping stone. 

III. 

One narrow heaving path of watery flow 
From Hellas leads unto that far-off place, 

Whereby a Grecian ship would sometimes go. 
And break the silence of the vasty space, 
But soon would flee in fear of savage race ; 

Or if the vessel ran into the grot. 

All perished there unseen and left no trace ; 

This Tauris was, to Greek a fearful spot. 

IV. 
Here was the fane by eldest Titans built. 

With pillars dropped from gemmed ceilings 
down ; 
Upon its altar human blood was spilt 

Unto an idol there in stony gown, 

An ugly idol with a horrid frown. 
That loved to see the victim in his gore. 

Or watch him in the surges helpless drown; 
The Tauriau Goddess she who held this shore. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUIilS. 103 

V. 

" Tread softly, softly, in our silent round, 
Bend slowly, slowly, and the burden bear; 

Here is the place — now set it on the ground. 
Behold the form of sleeping maiden fair 
Who in her journey long hath been our care. 

Hark to the call of Time — we must not stay, 
Breathe on her eyelids but a breath of air ; 

She stirs ! she wakes ! we go, but she must stay." 

VI. 

Within the grot asleep the maiden lay, 

Iphigenia, there divinely borne ; 
She woke and went to seek the radiant day. 

But saw dim fog-light on a world forlorn ; 

The heart dropped in her breast to see that 
morn. 
No columns wrought upheld in joy her soul, 

She only saw huge rocks by water worn. 
No sunny temple, but a dark, dank hole. 

vn. 

Such was the change from her fair Grecian home : 
No trailing vineyard waved within her look, 

With leaves and vines that over hillsides roam, 
With Bacchus garlanded along the brook. 
While maids from trees the golden fruitage 
shook, 

Or did in merry song ripe clusters cull ; 
No God or Goddess in each sacred nook, 

In sun-born shape revealed the Beautiful. 



104 AGAMEMNON'S DAUQHTEB. 

VIII. 

The Olive, pyramid of fruit and green, 
Rose not, the very tree of Pallas wise ; 

The sunshine came, but not with that soft sheen 
Which glows within the liquid Doric skies, 
And falls on sea and land a Paradise; 

No smiling sunlike rays of yellow corn 
Shot up to greet the glad festivities, 

And wrapped the earth in endless golden morn. 

IX. 

The howl was heard of savage roaming beast 
Above the endless sough of forest drear; 

Each preyed on each, from largest to the least, 
The lion in his hunt would straggle near, 
Hisbloody trail would printthestoneswithfear ; 

The falcon in the skies would claw the dove. 
The cruel pard below would tear the deer, 

The eagle clove the hare, then soared above. 

X. 

Wild were the beasts, and wilder yet the men : 
Of whom a sudden rout sprang out the wood. 

And hurried to the fane through tangled fen; 
A shaggy fell hung round the body nude. 
They howled in savage dance and gesture rude, 

While in their midst a prisoner was bound j 
Expecting death, he oft in terror stood. 

Or oft was fiercely dragged along the ground. 



IPHIQENIA AT TAUIilS. 105 

XI. 

Yet once from his tormentors he did leap, 
And fled away as fleet as any deer, 

And sprang into the sea far down a steep ; 
The maiden looked with sympathetic fear, 
To her at once the wretched man grew dear ; 

She hoped he might escape but he was caught, 
Whereat within her eye welled up the tear. 

As she on him and on herself too, thought. 

XII. 

Him struggling to that very fane they bore, 

A sacrifice to Goddess there to pay, 
They saw what they had never seen before, 

A maiden put herself within their way ; 

She bade them not the guiltless captive slay. 
But offered them herself instead of him ; 

Blood ceased to flow on Taurian shrine that 
day, 
And reverence did soften bosoms grim. 

XIII. 
Thoas was there, of all that region king ; 

He kept his people back by his strong word. 
When he beheld the maiden offering; 

By her one look his heart was strangely stirred, 

Then by her gentle hand he was deterred ; 
Awe seized him, as in her the Gods above 

He saw, and then a softer note he heard : 
The awe divine began to whisper love. 



106 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XIV. 

" Oh! where am I " the lonely maiden cried, 
" What Avill become of me if here I stay ! 

I thought within the fane I once had died, 
Then twice am I to die — die every day — 
What shapes fleet yonder on the air this way ? 

O speak me help and heart, ye Spirit Powers ! " 
To her in soft response arose a lay; 

Thus sang the swiftly-stepping, soothing Hours : 

XV. 

" The maid who once was by the Goddess spared, 

She must now others save in that same need, 
Again must do what she at Auhs dared, 

An ofl'ering for her own kind to bleed ; 

It is the consecration of her deed, 
Her sacrifice she will henceforth repeat, 

Until it is become her life and creed, 
And every day her death she dares to meet. 

XVI. 

" She is to tame to peace these bosoms wild, 
And make them lose their mad delight in blood ; 

It is her task to put her spirit mild 
Into the soul of men however rude, 
And make it bear her image of the good; 

When she the fierce barbarian hath won, 
Vengeance no more shall be his daily food 

He shall forever do as she hath done." 



irHIGENIA AT TAUBIS. 107 

XVII. 

So sang the Hours, still longed she for her land, 

The Hellas far away, which had her slain 
In its own thought, yet by divine command, 

When she at Aulis entered Dian's fane; 

But now the long, long years she must remain 
Within this distant savage wilderness. 

Busy until her time be come again ; 
Yet could she not the bitter sigh suppress : 

XVIII. 

" How heavy o'er me hang these leaden skies ! 

O where is sunshine, where my own fair clime 
And its fair works that everywhere uprise 

In splendor on the land and sea sublime ! 

The song and dance of youths in golden prime. 
Labors of men, the sowing of the seed. 

The forms of Gods far looking down on Time, 
The heroes great and the heroic deed ! 

XIX. 

" It is a gloomy land, a savage brood. 

Where I must pass my youthful holiday ; 

The people know nought of the fair or good. 
But from all human feeling turn away, 
They kill themselves, and me perchance will 
slay. 

Yet I have now to change them by my life ; 
Yes, home is here, I feel, and I must stay. 

And bring a world of peace out of the strife. 



108 AQMIEMNON" S DAUGHTEB. 

XX. 

•' The time has come, another Greece to make 
In new-born hope spring from this weary wild ; 

I shall both for its own and for my sake 
Transform it daily to the image mild 
Which hath on men from Hellas ever smiled ; 

I think the Olive may be hither brought, 
Though of the sunny skies it be the child, 

But surely works of hand may here be wrought. 

XXI. 

" The labors of the oxen at the plow 

Are first to tame to peace the savage earth ; 

In brotherhood the horse, and sheep, and cow 
Shall gather round the tranquil human hearth. 
And even brutes receive their higher worth ; 

This horrent waste I see rise up before 
All others hitherto in a new birth : 

'Twill be what Hellas is, it will be more." 

XXII. 

So flashed afar in dreams her shadowy thought : 
More than what Hellas hath she will impart 

Unto that savage folk ; it will be taught 
A deeper Beauty and a holier Art, 
Which is the inner flow of human heart ; 

The people will to nobler regions rise, 

Her deed, her life become their highest part — 

She will endow them with her sacrifice. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUEIS. 109 

XXIII. 
The bound of Barbaiy she will transcend, 

And make all Greek beyond the Grecian pale ; 
The gentile hate in her will have an end 

When her new spirit shall in love prevail, 

And free the prisoned world from its own jail; 
Old Hellas too, will share her blessing great, 

The distant threat she sweeps from hill and 
dale — 
For the Hellenic land she breaks down Fate. 

XXIV. 
And there alone she stayed for twenty years 

With that sole piir))ose in her sincere breast; 
She moved through troubled seas of hopes and 
fears. 

Still on she went in faith with all her zest, 

And never failed to think and do the best ; 
The people came to see her from afar, 

They went away with her high soul possessed, 
And to her looking up as to their star. 

XXV. 
The noisome grot she turned to temple fair, 

With columns white that stood along the seas 
And saw their limpid beauty imaged there. 

With wavy architrave and flowing freize, 

And sculptured shapes of liquid deities ; 
The ugly idol rose no more to view. 

The Taurian shrine no bloody death decrees. 
The Goddess is herself transformed too. 



110 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGHTEB. 

XXVI. 

With her are all the Gods of Greece transformed 
Into fresh founts of mild beatitude, 

By a new inner sun their looks are warmed, 
Not now the horrid Taurian monster rude, 
Whose stony frown was with cold death 
bedewed, 

But sweet Greek Artemis is throned above. 
The Goddess who refused the maiden's blood, 

And looked beyond Olympus, seat of Jove. 

XXVII. 

Demeter, too, sought in that land a home. 

Where she did sow broad-cast her f oodf ul seed. 

Which springs on heights or low in valleys' loam. 
Wherewith she mio;ht the teeming millions feed. 
And no one in her bounty suffer need ; 

The cattle grazed on every hill in peace. 

On endless plains of pasture roamed the steed, 

And mother earth gave forth her full increase. 

XXVIII. 
And all the land was filled with gardens sweet, 

Which Pallas made her favored dwelling place. 
Where stood fair boys of bronze that moved 
their feet, 

And steeds of stone that ran the swiftest race, 

And tripods moving to and fro with grace ; 
Within each brazen bosom breathed sweet life, 

The fiercest struggle calmed in marble face. 
That told the Greek and the Barbarian strife. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAURIS. lU 

XXIX. 

The maiden taught the labors of the loom, 
In which her own strange life she deftly wove, 

Her youth's deep dream, and then her sudden 
doom; 
Her web could tell how the great heroes strove, 
Reveal the deed of wrath, the deed of love, 

Her Taurian life she did therein unfold, 
How it flowed on within the plan of Jove: 

In gold and purple threads the tale was told. 

XXX. 

She tells anew the Grecian histories. 
The mighty gests of great Bellerophon, 

Yet coupled with the saddest destinies ; 

The highest deed doth hold the deepest groan, 
And greatness is but suffering alone ; 

That Hero vanquished monsters of the East, 
And made the fair Hellenic world his own, 

Then senseless roamed the field as any beast. 

XXXI. 

She tells the fairest story of the sea. 

Of ship that bore the princely Argonaut ; 

She lapped the tale in folds of poesy 

More rich than all the gold the vessel brought, 
Yet with her own deep store of wisdom fraught ; 

Barbaric minds now build that ship of Greece, 
Which newer Colchian treasures further sought. 

And bore to their own land the Golden Fleece. 



112 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGIITEB. 

XXXII. 

But of the many wondrous talcs she told, 
The chief was legend of stout Hercules, 

The mighty darling of romances old, 

Who had to labor through all lands and seas, 
Until the earth of his fierce foes he frees ; 

He drained the bog, the mountain way he rent, 
He turned the rivers, felled the forest trees. 

By him this earth was made man's instrument. 

xxxin. 

The wildest beasts, the wildest men he tamed, 
When Greece her wilderness began to shed, 

And the first law for human living framed ; 
But when he over every land had sped. 
And bravely freed it of its monsters dread. 

He must descend to Hades, free it too 

Of its damned dog which guards the gloomy 
dead ; 

Both worlds, above, below, he must pass through. 

xxxiv. 

To the Barbarians the myth she sings, 

Which they take up and sing in their own tongue 

Through all the distant realms of icy kings. 
Beside the northern seas, and up among 
The frosty blasts, whence Boreas is flung 

Upon the south, where scarce the sun will shine ; 
Deep unknown rivers float the strains there 
sung, 

And bards chant from the Danube to the Rhine. 



IFHIGENIA AT TAURIS. H3 

XXXV. 

The Getans of the furthest Dacian plain 

Catch up the echo of Hellenic lay, 
And warp and weave it in their Gothic strain, 

That floats beneath the Hyperborean day, 

And wraps itself in misty folds of gray, 
Far, far beyond the sunny Ionian skies, 

Where now Europa sleeps her time away, 
And where in might hereafter she will rise. 

XXXVI. 

In magic spell of strange barbaric measures 
Are hymned those antique fables never trite ; 

And all the storied world of Grecian treasures 
Is richly there inlaid with fancies bright, 
That flash and soar in new poetic flight, 

Though still they keep their first Hellenic soul ; 
The ancient germ doth now unfold to light, 

And its deep hidden wealth in time unroll. 

XXXVII. 
A weird spirit entered in the word. 

Which danced as if possessed and sparkled 
round ; 
Then by some harmony most deeply strirrcd. 

It wooed another like itself in sound, 

Until the happy pair were linked and bound ; 
So word would chase another word to kiss. 

In many strains of love they locked and wound. 
And gave to man a foretaste of his bliss. 



114 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXXVIIl. 

Through all that wilderness sang Helen's story, 

In sweet melodic concords of the rhyme ; 
It builded up afresh an olden glory, 

Though now transplanted from its Grecian 
clime, 

And moving to another tune and time ; 
The very sounds of it were wont to wed, 

As winged with Eros, they uprose sublime. 
And glowed in raptured flight with passion red. 

XXXIX. 

It melted to its thrill the wildest heart, 

Which felt the honeyed spell of that great 
love. 
And felt the pain, which was its other part, 

Sent down on guilty pair from Gods above ; 

The human deed inside the will of Jove, 
With all the strains of noble minstrelsy. 

In one vast strand of destiny was wove ; 
That guilt, to be o'ercome, had first to be. 

XL. 

Far on the air resounds that song of songs, 
Through all the spacious realms of Barbary, 

It flames the hearts of bards, who rise in throngs, 
To sing that lay of deep fatality, 
And then the still more deep recovery ; 

It is the eternal song which they must sing, 
They hymn in it their own true history. 

What Time has brousrht and will forever bring. 



inilGENIA AT TAUBIS. 115 

XLI. 

The lay of Helen far resounded then, 

And still resounds afresh through all those 
lands ; 

It weaves its magic chain in souls of men. 

And holds them tranced in its fiue golden bands 
Which seem to grow to be life's very strands : 

The oldest song and yet the latest too, 
It bears the human and divine commands, 

True in that elder world and in this new. 

XLII. 

Ah me, could I but catch one straying shred 
Of that high strain and fix it in my line, 

As it comes floating down, to music wed, 
I, the barbaric singer, might now shine 
And call my sisters all the Muses nine. 

But one is born too late, aye, or too soon ; 
'Tis all the same, without the light divine. 

To watch at night or go to bed at noon. 

XLIII. 

But hark ! again that sound upon the air ! 

It fleets like straying note of hidden bird ! 
A voice now falls around the maiden there ! 

And now it speaks a strong prophetic word. 

Whereby she in her very soul is stirred. 
From Past to Future turn the secret Powers, 

And in their voices Time himself is heard ; 
Hear them foretell, the swiftly-stepping Hours: 



116 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XLIV. 

" Thou, maiden, art to teach a nobler lay — 
It is the lay of Helen's restoration 

Through thine own sacrifice, upon that day 
When thou didst offer life for the salvation 
Of the lost woman and the lost nation; 

By that high deed was made the future path 
Whereon man travels to his godlike station. 

And with him bears the world from its own wrath. 

XLV. 

" And deeper, warmer still shall flow the stream. 

The tuneful stream of song in pulses great. 
Which all the wilds to clear away shall seem, 

And cleanse the savage heart of all its hate ; 

It is the song of maiden dedicate 
In barbarous Tauris now as once in Greece ; 

It hymns her life supreme, there consecrate 
That world as well as Hellas to release. 

XLVI. 

" It tells how each is to regard the other, 

Deeper than difference is unity. 
The man is to behold in man his brother. 

And bind him to himself in kindred tie ; 

Thine is the golden word of charity. 
Which stops the hate of men, the war of nations, 

Which melts to one the human family, 
And interlinks the future srenerations." 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUBIS. 117 

XLVII. 
'i'hus they foretold, the daughters of high Jove, 

The swiftly-ste[)ping Hours the world foretold 
Soon to be built anew for all by love, 

Which would make warm the human heart now 
cold 

And overmake to youth the ages old. 
The maiden heard the voice, it was her lay — 

She was herself the story which was told. 
And she began her task that very day. 

XL VIII. 

Many a Grecian man she did there save 

From wretched wreck along the rugged coast. 

When he had strayed too far upon the wave ; 
She heard of sack of Troy by Argive host. 
And wanderings of Greeks by tempest tossed ; 

But she was deeply filled v/ith other thouglit: 
Greek or Barbarian, if he were lost, 

In one great deed ot" love to save she sought. 

XLIX. 
And then she would transform him to her life. 

She lights herself into the hearts of all, 
Whereby she puts an end to mortal strife 

'Tvvcen East and West where stands the Trojan 
wall. 

Which she will take, not by the city's fall. 
She will no lands lay waste, no towns destro}'-. 

She gives both sides her image magical. 
With it she takes, and thereby saves old Tro3\ 



118 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

L. 

Band after band of priestesses she trained, 

Wliom to tlie deepest wilderness she sent; 
Of hardship, toil, and death they never plained, 

They gave up home and welcomed banishment ; 

For savage man and child their lives were spent. 
To whom they bore the lamp of their great school; 

Into the frozen, fiery zone they went, 
And burst upon the shore of farthest Thule. 

LI. 

They stood beside the broad Atlantic seas. 

Whose waters measureless seemed their last 
bound; 
But soon to land of far Hesperides, 

They crossed the wave, where a new world 
was found, 

And they at once began to break the ground ; 
Through wilder, vaster forests on they went, 

O'er mighty rivers, till they made their round, 
And spanned with bridge of light a continent. 

LII. 

These women were the greatest conquerors, 
Theirs too, the lasting victory has been, 

Though it was never gained in cruel wars, 

The bloody cutting sword was not their mean, 
They used a brighter weapon and more keen, 

Their mind it was by which this deed was done, 
Girding the earth in zones of mental sheen. 

To make the wide world one and keep it one. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUEIS. 119 

LIII. 

How all that people loved her, called her blest ! 

Her as a Goddess they would fain adore, 
She ever called up in them what was best ; 

King Thoas was the man who loved her more 

Than any other on the Taurian shore ; 
A noble man, and a yet nobler king. 

Of ruler's virtues he possessed the store. 
He souojht like her to be an offering. 

LIV. 

The days roll on, the mighty years roll on. 
Devotion in him suffers a slow change, 

No longer awe of her religi6n 

He feels, but to a transformation strange 
He falls, which doth his life and hers derange ; 

The king now loves her with a lover's love, 
Into his bride he will the priestess change, 

And from her maiden destiny will move. 

LV. 

Still she doth long for her far native land, 

To her Greek folk she knows she must return, 
They are to be made free by her own hand 

From Trojan strifes, from Fates and Furies 
stern ; 

The Greek in thought has slain her, and must 
yearn 
Her once again in his own world to see ; 

All Hellas has through her anew to learn 
To be transformed as well as Barbary. 



120 AaA31EMN0N' S DAUGHTER. 

LVI. 

Helen they have restored with mighty arm; 

A deeper restoration must be won, 
Which Iphigenia brings without a harm ; 

She teaches them to do what she has done, 

Her double sacrifice they must not shun, 
The vengeful must to helpful heart be turned, 

Then is Greek wrong to her for aye undone, 
Her image is Into their bosoms burned. 

LVH. 

In royal suit she day by day is pressed, 
Which she must meet by craft, a trial new 

That bears the deepest discord in her breast ; 
Her heart by double duty cut in two 
She feels; to Truth the first she must be true. 

Yet to her Mission true ; if she deceive 
The King, it will her very life undo, 

Yet her last destiny she cannot leave. 

Lvin. 

Suspicion darkly broods in high-born breast, 
The King beo;ins to chano;e his confidence; 

The burden of his heart gives him no rest. 
In every act of hers he sees offense, 
Even her good he notes as insolence ; 

The savage, long suppressed, begins to burn, 
To cruel thoughts are changed his new intents. 

To ancient Taurian times he will return. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUBIS. 121 

LIX. 

One day he sends his trusty messenger, 

Demanding answer to be brought forthright ; 

Again she seeks her pretext to defer, 
And turns her step to hasten out of sight 
Into the fane, when suddenly in might 

The King appears, and wrathful to her speaks; 
As if he had a battle there to fight, 

His eyes flash vengeance which the savage wreaks : 

LX. 

" Thy subtle Grecian craft will do no good. 
Thy answer on the morrow I must have ; 

For thee I stopped the flow of human blood, 
I from the gory altar did thee save 
When savages did fiercely round thee rave, 

I made thee greatest power in my state. 

Thy power through the world I to thee gave : 

But now I feel my love turn into hate. 

LXI. 

" The wild man's heart once more begins to rise, 

My deadly foe shall be again the Greek, 
Vengeance comes back, within I hear its cries 

To rash its claws into thy visage meek; 

Thy labors to undo is what I seek. 
Ingratitude I shall re-pay to thee, 

A maddened savage I revenge shall wreak — 
This altar's victim now thou art to be." 



122 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTEE. 

LXII. 

In rage he turns away, she doth appeal 

Once more unto the Goddess at her shrine: 

" High Virgin, thou who didst in light reveal 
Thyself to me, and take me to be thine, 
Didst make thy very ministry be mine. 

And promise me return to my dear land. 
Me, fragile bearer of thy plan divine, 

O help me execute thy high command. 

LXIII. 

*• O Goddess, let me not from thee be taken, 

The Fate of Trojan love now threatens me; 
Must I from thee. Protectress, turn forsaken, 

To Aphrodite given o'er, to be 

In foreign land held in captivity? 
Another war of Troy, yet far more dread. 

More stained with human blood I can foresee ; 
If I return not home, I am but dead. 

LXIV. 

" Thou Goddess chaste, to thine own love enthrall 
This noble man's still savage love, I pray, 

Winch seeks me for itself and not for all. 
Immortal thou beam out my mortal clay. 
That he through passion rise to thy clear day. 

Be not barbaric Tauris doomed like Troy, 
Let not good Thoas cast his gain away. 

And by enslaving me himself destroy." 



IPHIGENIA AT TAVBIS. 123 

LXV. 
Hark to the whisper on the sunny air ! 

It is again the Hours, the watchful, true, 
Wiio breathe an answer to the maiden's prayer; 

" We shut and ope Olympus to the view; 

W e guard the cloudy gate the Gods pass through 
Whenlhey come down to stay the faithful heart ; 

Release will come, but thou must also do— ■ 
The Gods for thee are doing now their part." 

LXVI. 

While still she prayed, far out at sea a ship 
Was seen to struggle through the plunging 
wave ; 

Deep in the watery chasm it would dip, 

Then from the top of highest surge it drave 
Till scarce its keel the madding floods could 
lave ; 

Again wovdd sink and almost disappear, 
°Then rise and rear in air from its wet grave, 

While ever to the land it drew anear. 

LXVH. 
In steady strife with that wild element 

The oarsmen long had beat the sullen brine ; 
But now they many feverish glances sent 

To see what on the shore might give a sign ; 

They saw around them rise a walled line 
Of sea-smit rock on which they read their doubt ; 

Oft had they heard it was a land malign. 
Still pulled they on, and dared with bosoms stout. 



124 AGAMEMNON'S DAUOHTEB. 

LXVIII. 

From far-off Hellas they had hither come ; 

They took to ship at Aulis, in the bay 
Where many years agone a troubled hum 

Of men would o'er the waters aimless stray; 

But this ship northward cut its lonely way, 
And passed Olympus lofty on the left, 

Where happy Gods dwell in eternal day. 
And of the song and feast are never reft. 

LXIX. 

The slender ship threads narrow Hellespont, 

Darts through the jaws of fierce Symplegades, 
Where only Jove's swift-flying dove is wont 

To pass, when borne on strong Olympian 
breeze; 

The ship broke into solitary seas 
Which surged upon a distant unknown world ; 

The bounded Euxine felt a strange release, 
And with new life its ancient billows whirled. 

LXX. 

Two Grecian Youths were sitting on the deck ; 

The one did seem to toss the ship in thought, 
His face was graven with a fearful wreck, 

And showed deep netted storms-lines inter- 
wrought 

Into his life, which thorough days had brought ; 
The other let no glance turn from his mate, 

Affection overflowed his eyes, yet fraught 
With wearied sorrow, watching long and late. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUBIS. 125 



LXXI. 



One was Orestes, slayer of his mother, 

Whom Furies had at home pursued to rcud ; 

Fond sympathetic Pylades the other, 
He was the Grecian Hero, but as friend. 
Whose heart, not guilt or glory, did him send 

Along with Agamemnon's wretched son. 

Until the frenzied mind mightly haply mend, 

Or of this life the frantic trip be done. 

Lxxn. 

Upon them lay a stern divine command. 
The Delphic God bade them the sister find, 

And said she was detained in barbarous land 
At Tauris, where she kept her fervent mind 
To be restored to her own Grecian kind. 

Apollo's sister Artemis they thought. 

To the wise God's deep meaning they were blind, 

But clearest truth from error dark is wrought. 

Lxxin, 

Far had they sailed, and still must onward sail ; 

Where Tauris was, they did not fully know, 
They kept by faith along an unseen trail, 

Until the chilly blast began to blow; 

The sailors murmured, would no further go. 
Worn by the seas, they ran into the shore ; 

Although they should be eaten by the foe, 
They lay down in the sand and quit the oar. 



126 AGAMEMNON'S D AUGHT EB. 

LXXIV. 

Not far away a spring flowed down a hill, 
And peacefully did mingle with the wave; 

It was a soft, yet merry buoyant rill. 

Which had a speech as it the stones would lave. 
And e'en of music it would sing a stave, 

Then fade away into a bubbling noise ; 
A word in fond low tone it often gave, 

Then in the flow of waters lost its voice. 

LXXV. 

It was of loving Nymphs the favored spot, 
Who the worn stranger with a balm receive, 

And soon refresh him in their shady grot. 
Or in the brook their bosoms to him heave, 
Or hum a strain to which his soul will cleave ; 

To follow up the hill they lure their guest, 
And with soft notes his footsteps interweave , 

Sing snatches sweet when he sits down to rest. 

LXXVI. 

Both youths went up the brook to fields of grain, 
A garden vast they saw from the high hill. 

The island hamlets flecked the sun-gilt plain. 
In seas of verdure herds were lying still, 
Or cropped lush grass, or stood within the rill ; 

The yellow grain waved into red-barred skies, 
Which sent around the world a tender trill, 

As playing music of that Paradise. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUIilS. 127 

LXXVII. 

Not far away a noble temple stood, 

Which seemed the shining center whence did ray 
All of those glories of sweet plenitude ; 

They had to follow but the nearest way 

To come to where the sunny structure lay ; 
They entered it, the landscape's very heart, 

To the divinity therein to pray. 
If it might be appeased to take their part, 

LXXVIII. 

And there within uprose a sacred shrine. 

By it the priestess stood with kindly glance ; 
She seemed to shed on all a hope divine. 

Which would the shyest shrinking heart per- 
chance 

Embolden to its prayer to advance. 
But hark ! she speaks true tones of honeyed Greek, 

Bids them be now at home, and gently grants 
Their dumb request to tell what here they seek. 

LXXIX. 

They answer liquid notes, how sweet the sound ! 

She heard again her dear Hellenic speech; 
Her home, her youthful days, her faith she found 

When she in words heart-born her thoughts 
could reach. 

And could without barbaric discord teach 
What with her eye, what with her soul she saw. 

And in the purest mother tongue beseech 
The Gods, without a stammer or a flaw. 



128 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXX. 

But a still deeper music struck a note, 

Which tuned the priestess' soul unto one 
thought : 
" I cannot tell what makes my fancies float 

Far back to childish things which once I sought. 

What hidden spirit hath upon me wrought, 
That I to this sad youth should feel so near? 

Some destiny hath him unto me brought ; 
Him I must ask about my father dear." 

LXXXI. 

She spake to him of Agamemnon then. 

Foreboding by her soul's own magic spell 
That this young man knew of the King of men, 

And could her father's latest story tell; 

That same deep feeling did the youth compel, 
That he her heart within his own caressed ; 

But now her speech dropped on him like a knell, 
Yet he replied thereto with soul suppressed : 

LXXXII. 

" The mighty leader felled the town of Troy, 
Then safely home into Mycense came. 

And there his spouse conspired him to destroy ; 
She said that he at Aulis was to blame 
That her own daughter bled like beastly game ; 

The wife her husband smote with vengeance 
grim. 
She would blot out in blood his very name : 

As he her daughter slew, so slew she him. 



IPJHGENIA AT TAURIS. 129 

LXXXIII. 

" Years sped by but vengeance was not stayed; 

The son Orestes up to manhood grew, 
On him the Gods their heavy duty laid, 

The slayer of his father next he slew, 

The murderess who was his mother too ; 
Justice it was and the divine command, 

She did receive but what was her own due, 
So Clytemnestra fell by her son's hand." 

LXXXIV. 

The priestess softened dooraful words in tears : 
*' Oh curse of Hellas, horror to the light! 

A land of sighs which deepen with the years, 
Where is revenge's rule and man's despite, 
The kindly human eye is put out quite ; 

Nor yet is broke that fatal chain of wrongs ; 
Revenoje befjets reveno^e — somewhere in night 

The Furies dog Orestes now in throngs." 

LXXXV. 

Therewith the youth in speech convulsive shook : 

" See where they come and fling their snaky hair 
At me ; with burning demon eyes they look 

Into my heart and what lies hidden there; 

They slime the temple's threshold — now they 
stare — 
Keep off, keep off, I see the clotted stain ; 

I did the deed and would again it dare, 
I slew her in revenire for father slain." 



130 AGAMEMNON^ S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXVI. 

His eyes turned inward while his body broke, 
He coiled low down into a speechless fit ; 

Sad Pylades in tender heartthrobs spoke: 
*' Again by his own reptile he is bit, 
Not soon, 1 fear, the spell will intermit ; 

He is Orestes, same of whom he told. 
He tries to hide, but ne'er hath hidden it, 

His strong attempt doth but his guilt unfold. 

LXXXVIl. 
*' He often lapsed before in such a swoon. 

When I went with him everywhere as friend ; 
His cure were now for me the greatest boon, 

Still I shall with him go unto the end, 

From beast and man and from himself defend; 
When the wild fit comes on, he raves and shrieks 

At the Erinnyes, whose serpents send 
The maddening hiss which vengeance wreaks. 

LXXXYin. 

** Much have we roamed the world in search of 
cure, 

All Hellas we have seen, no help we found ; 
We sought afar the high-hilled fountains pure 

Of healing Nymphs who babble from the 
ground. 

And Aesculapius who mends each wound ; 
All, all in vain ; till now my hope was fair. 

While he came hither every hour was sound. 
To him returns disease, to me despair." 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUBIS. 131 

LXXXIX. 

The priestess quick in thought to him replied : 
** Kevenge he takes, revenge him then pursues ; 

That house of Tantalus which hath defied 

The Gods, is his ; that house would ever choose 
Its own curse first, its blessing would refuse, 

In its own ruin than all foes more strong; 
No heir of it forgives his bloody dues, 

And stops the stream of wrong begetting wrong. 

XC. 

" From father to the son descends the curse, 

The son gives it anew unto his child, 
And with each gory deed it groweth Avorse, 

Till human hearts which Help should render 
mild, 

Barbaric passion fills with rancor wild. 
The time is come to make the great release 

From vengence which hath all our land defiled ; 
Orestes' cure is too the cure for Greece." 

XCI. 

Good Pyiades in wonder stared, then said: 

*' The Grecian Gods for us are powerless, 
When our worn footsteps had to Delphi led, 

Apollo his own weakness did confess; 

The God declared we must ourselves address 
To one who lived in barbarous land, not him ; 

But what ho meant by that, we could not guess ; 
We asked again, he spake new riddles dim : 



132 AGMIEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XCII. 

" ' Bring back from Tauriaii shore ihy aister 
dear, 

Whose image there in starry sheen doth rise 
Along the Northern seas, where thou must steer ; 

It is a sacred image, from the skies 

It fell on Tauris with blest auguries; 
That land was then a dark and savage land, 

She let my sunshine in, now bright it lies. 
And merciful will give a helping hand. 

XCIII. 
" ' Bring back my sister thence, who did not 
take 

At Aulis once the dark avenging blood; 
Who ancient cruel rites of Goddess brake. 

When guiltless maiden at her altar stood, 

And sacrifice became the doing good; 
Then will Orestes be forever healed, 

But he by Furies must be still pursued, 
Until to Hellas whole she be revealed.'" 

XCIV. 

The priestess saw at once the God's intent, 
His double word to her was one, and clear; 

She spake in tones of mild admonishment: 
" Blame not the God before thou rightly hear. 
Thy mortal speech is not the speech of Seer 

Or God, which thou wilt never understand 
Until thou see it double, far and near. 

See future and the past knit in one strand. 



IPHIGENIA AT TAUBIS. 133 

xcv. 

"I tell thee now what wise Apollo meant, 

When he from inmost shrine his riddles read: 
I am Orestes' sister, he is sent 

To bring me back to those who think me dead ; 

My blood was not upon the altar shed, 
By the God's sister I was saved and brought 

To Tauris here, amid Barbarians dread. 
Whom fair Humanity we both have taught. 

XCVI. 

" The sisters twain of whom the God hath spoken 
Are we — the mortal and immortal dwell 

Together in a life of deeds unbroken ; 
I am the priestess who in word can spell 
The thought divine the Goddess doth indwell ; 

' Tis I who shall return, the image bear 
Of her who venges not, but will dispel 

The hate which Furies nurse into despair." 

XCVII. 

Not yet was lost the lisp of her last word, 
Orestes woke, and to his feet arose. 

That final healing speech of hers he heard 
In trance, which was the end of all his woes. 
To a sweet rest were soothed convulsive throes : 

The new man from his healthy eyes now beams. 
As he up to the holy priestess goes, 

And to her speaks fulfillment of her dreams: 



134 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XCVIII. 

" Thou art my long-dead sister, now I know 
What I at first but felt dim in my heart; 

With me thy lot it is to Greece to go, 

And there to thine own land thyself impart. 
Draw from its raging breast the venomeddart, 

For it is truly mad, as I was mad. 

With hot revenge ; it must be what thou art, 

Be cured like me of having what I had. 

XCIX. 

" I saw the Furies flee to their dark cave, 
I heard the clashing door behind them close. 

Within the earth's stone bowels let them rave, 
And smite her granite bosom with their blows, 
For I am free forever of their woes ; 

Thy word, thy healing word, hath done it all, 
Ilath put to sudden flight my fiercest foes. 

And me from frenzy back to life doth call. 



" Not stony idol set in fane, I see, 

Can be the image of the Goddess true. 

She hath another higher ministry. 

Thou art her holy image, brought to view 
In deeds of life, and every day anew ; 

Thou dost her worthy form divine reveal 
In freshest bloom of living human hue. 

And poor mankind in helpfulness dost heal. 



IPHIQENIA AT TAUBIS. 135 

CI. 

" Apollo's sister 1 shall with me take, 

And with the Goddess mine own sister too, . 

Both for my sake and for my people's sake ; 
As she hath done, are they henceforth to do, 
Yea, she must all men with her deed endue ; 

It is her deed that us of evil rids. 

The Fates shall fly from her as Furies flew, 

She brings to end the curse of Tantalids." 

CII. 

While thus they talk, another raving man 
With violence into their presence breaks ; 

A fit of madness shrieks from visage wan. 
Grimaces fierce and gestures wild he makes, 
Each limb, each muscle in his body shakes; 

Thoas it is, already mad with love ; 

But when he sees the Greeks, anew he quakes 

For jealousy, and frights the holy grove: 

cm. 

" Woman, Fury, thou art my greatest curse! 

Thou owest me thy life and influence, 
Thy purpose newly planted I did nurse, 

I saved thee from the hand of insolence, 

I calmed to hope thy fleeing, frightened sense, 
I gave thee love, I gave this kingly heart ; 

Now I am scorned by thee, reap but off*ence, 
And my kind breast is pierced by thj^fell dart. 



136 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGIITEB. 

CIV. 

" Traitress, ingrate, incapable of love, 
False to thy doctrine, in thyself untrue, 

My good thou dost requite with wrong above 
What demons dare; I know what I shall do, 
For I see other knavish Greeks here too — 

Thy lovers, come to carry thee away ; 
On ancient Taurian altar, all of you, 

I shall as pious debt long due, now slay." 

CV. 

The priestess caught his eye and touched his arm, 
Which, soon unnerved, writhed slowly to his 
side. 

As if it held itself from doing harm ; 

His savage lips did quiver, but not chide, 
Her o;entleness o'erwhelmed him in its tide : 

"O Thoas, friend — what hast thou done, al- 
most? 
A storm thy years of good doth override, 

And oh, methought I saw thee in it lost. 

CVI. 
'♦ Thy dark reproach I merit not, O King ; 

Far more than all thee have I loved and thine. 
For thee I have been here an offering. 

My days I have all given at thy shrine, 

My youthful days which will no more be mine. 
If not my body, to thee my soul I give. 

That is my dearest boon, my part divine. 
By which I hope thou mayst forever live. 



IPHIQENIA AT TAUBIS. 137 

CVII. 

" To my own hapless land I am now called, 
To Hellas which me once did immolate, 

Whereby to-day it is to guilt enthralled; 
Barbarian thou hast rescued me from fate, 
And thou must rescue too the Grecian State; 

If I to thee have taught my highest worth. 
Thou wilt anew the priestess dedicate, 

Restoring her to country of her birth. 

CVIII. 

*' If thou dost truly love and honor me, 
Thou wilt surrender me to blessedness; 

If what I am, in truth possesses thee. 

Thou wilt pass by thy right, thy sharp distress, 
And thine own sacritice alone wilt press ; 

By keeping me thou hast me not indeed, 
By sending me, thou hast me none the less, 

This is to thee my last, my highest meed. 

CIX. 

" If I may not my native land restore, 
The spirit cries, I shall myself not save ; 

If thou detain me on the Taurian shore, 
Thy liberator me thou wilt enslave, 
And thou no liberty thyself wilt have ; 

It is my time to go, my time just now. 
As long as the Greek brother is a slave, 

I am not free myself — not free art thou. 



138 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGinEE. 

ex. 

" No family is mine, another law 

Hath claimed me with its strong behest ; 

No babe with rosy lips will ever draw 
Its life out of the fountain of my breast, 
Or lisp to me of names the tenderest; 

Of Nature's loss I have to bear the pain. 
And rise upon it into duty blest; 

Another motherhood is there again." 

CXI. 

Barbarian Thoas drops the ruthful tear, 

He has received her final blessing too, 
In giving up what is to him most dear ; 

Yet he will keep of her what is the true, 

His hasty deed in penitence undo, 
Whereby in him the last dark savage strand 

Is struck from Nature, and his spirit new 
Begs now to bear her to her own dear land. 

CXII. 

And many barbarous peoples thither flock 

From lands whereof no Greek hath yet a notion. 

From East and West, from North new earth-born 
stock ; 
Around her now they roll in grand commotion. 
Yet in her find their soul's most sweet devotion ; 

They come, they come from farthest bleakest 
Thule, 
Where her fair temples bind the edge of Ocean, 

E'en from Atlantis where no Kins: hath rule. 



IPIIJOENIA AT TAURIS. 139 

CXIII. 

Europa's children seize the fleeting chance, 
To bring her home and to perfect their deed; 

For they will hers and their own worth enhance, 
When they have to the full re-paid her meed, 
And in their fealty are ripe to bleed ; 

When placed again upon her ancient seat, 
She too hath won herself, is truly freed. 

And they, completing her, themselves complete. 

CXIV. 
More ships at Tauris now are brought together 

Than in the olden time to Aulis came. 
They had no stress of winds, had no foul weather ; 

A greater act, to be of greater fame, 

Than hath been yet bound up with Helen's 
name ; 
And the new Gods send gales, not to take Troy, 

Not to avenge in hate a woman's shame, 
Their will is to redeem, not to destroy. 

cxv. 

So act these men in noble gratitude 

To her who gave to them what was their best, 
Who changed the jungled earth, the savage rude. 

Into a land and people that were blest, 

Obeymg human law and God's behest ; 
But now the last and greatest deed is done. 

Return to Hellas is the final test 
Whereby Greek and Barbarian are one. 



140 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEll. 

CXVI. 

Orestes, the mad Greek, his cure has found, 

The vengeful Furies him no more pursue; 
Thoas, the wild Barbarian, is now sound, 

His jealous wrath is chastened into rue ; 

Both men are healed, begin their life anew, 
Their hateful limit they will both erase. 

Both feel their oneness, have one thing to do, 
Both sink down at her feet, and there embrace. 

CXVII. 

" Up, up !" a voice runs through the darkening 
air, 
It is again the Hours, the watchful, true ; 
*' Up, up !" they sing with troubled note of care, 
*< We shut and ope Olympus to the view. 
We guard the cloudy gate the Gods pass 
through. 
Now man they leave, the Fates and Furies 
throng ; 
Up, up ! there is the final deed to do ; 
They come ! hark to the dread demonic song." 



Canto Fourth. 
Return and Restoration. 



(Ui) 



ARGUMENT. 

The scene changes from, Tauris back to Greece, to a 
X>lace lohich may he called the Hellenic heart, namely, 
Delphi. First is heard the chorus of the Fates and 
Furies, the dark Poioers of which Hellas is to he freed 
by the return of Iphigenia, who in the present Canto 
appears in two relations: first, alone and unrecognized; 
secondly, recognized and installed in her great vocation. 

I. Upon the dark background of Fates and Furies 
there takes place a bright Greek festival, wliich brings 
together all the fatuous men tvho have returned from 
Troy, Nestor, Menelaus, Ulysses; the latter coming with 
Penelo2)e. All celebrate their return from loar and 
wandering. 

In the midst of the festivity Iphigenia a^ypears, alone 
and unknown to everybody. She catches the spirit of 
the time, and clearly sees what she is to do in her oivn 
layid. She hears her oldbard who once sang in Mycence 
{See First Canto). He sings the story of Achilles, the 
hero wrathful and reconciled, then he sings the fate of 
Agamemnon, and the woes of the House of Tantalus, 
to lohich she belongs. At last he sings her oivn tale of 
sacrifice, and utters the pirophecy of her return. Iphige- 
nia for a moment sinks in despair at the account of Iter 
bloody kinship, but soon rises up with new resolution. 

Helen, too, comes to the Delphic festival, having been 
restored from Troy. Her great change is described. 
(142) 



A short account of her Trojan experience is given, and 
her internal struggles while in that city are indicated. 
She masters Aphrodite ere Troy can fall, and the God- 
dess herself changes with Helen. The bard comes for- 
loard and sings his second song in praise of Helen, 
which is in strong contrast with his former song. (^First 
Canto.) He expresses his fervid desire for the 
one loho has not yet returned, and Helen also feels deep 
longing for Iphigenia, ivhen behold! she appears. 
(I—LXXXIL) 

II. Recognition between the tioo icomen, the most dif- 
ferent in character, yet belonging together. The people 
turn aioayfrom Helen to Iphigenia, and choose her for 
priestess of the new Apollo, who, though a God, has also 
been transformed from a Trojan divinity to a Hellenic 
one. With him the old Greek tvorld is transformed 
into its true life and loorks. But scarce has this begun, 
ivhen TJioas, the Taurian King, appears and tells ivhat 
Iphigenia has done for Barbary. Through her deed too 
the Fates, who have always loioered over Greece, have 
been put to flight. After him Orestes, free of his 
madness, stei)s forth, and tells the story of his 
cure, ivhercby the Furies no longer pursue him. At the 
end of his declaration, the last song of the Fates and 
Furies is heard, vanishing from Delphi into the dis- 
tance. Following it, is the new song of the Muses, lohich 
touches the fined highest deed of Agamemnon' s Daughter. 



(143) 



I. 

*' Around, around we circle hand in hand, 

We rule this Lower World, the Gods we rule, 

We tie up Time itself within our band, 
The human Will is but our tiny tool. 
The man who fights against us is the fool. 

In iron rim of fierce barbaric powers 

This little Greece we bind and press and pull ; 

The man, the land, the God, e'en Zeus are ours." 

II. 

So sang the Fates, while they kept wheeling 
round 

In ever-closing curves the Delphic fane, 
111 wrath they beat the air, they smote the ground, 

Then tightly shut their triple grip again 

To rhythm of a wild tyrannic strain. 
Blent in their song were heard the Furies too. 

Who screamed afar in vengeful sharp refrain 
What they had done, and what they still would do : 
10 (145) 



Ii6 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

III. 

" Around wc whirl in rage and strike and squirm, 
We gnash our fangs and scorn the note of bliss ; 

We drop to earth and coil up like a worm, 
We crawl to that side now, and now to this, 
Our laugh is but a scoff, our speech a hiss, 

We sway the man below, the Gods above 
Cannot the Furies from their rule dismiss ; 

Our joy is pain and hate is what we love." 

IV. 

So sang the Furies, of themselves they sang. 
Around they whirled in rage and smote the 
ground, 

They dropped into the dust and coiled and sprang, 
With snaky head upreared for sudden bound, 
Each serpent hair sent forth a hissing sound. 

They mingled with the Fates — a dreadful 
throng ; 
The fixed Fates and frantic Furies found 

A common hate and sang it in a song ; 

V. 

'' We too now with the Greeks to Delphi go, 
We triple Fates and Furies have control, 

Together we one life in twain bestow, 

The outer world of man is ours, the whole, 
His inner world is ours, the very soul 

Within the state of Greece, within the Greek ; 
We Fates the guilty deed on man shall roll. 

We Furies then revenge on him shall wreak." 



IFHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 147 

VI. 

The strain arose from Delphic lands high-hilled, 
And flowed adown the slopes unto the dale, 

The vineyards and the olive groves it filled, 
Where men and women echoed all the tale 
In far- heard notes that swung from height to 
vale, 

They sang it at their work and at their feast, 
They hymned it to the beat of threshing flail, 

And felt its awe from highest to the least. 

VII. 

From the Parnassian tops, where Muses played. 
Was floating over land and sea the lay 

Of Fates and Furies to a world dismayed; 
It bubbled out of Castaly's bright play, 
And dimmed her lucent rill on all its way ; 

The Oracle could speak no other word 
Unto the multitude who came to pray, 

And all their hearts were with it deeply stirred. 

VIII. 
O rocky Pytho, the one soul thou art 

Of this wide Grecian land and of the time ; 
Thou sendest thine own breath to every part, 

To touch the hidden chords of this fair clime, 

Whose thrill sets all the earth to thy deep chime; 
From out thy mountain breast deep-cleft in twain, 

Speaks prophecy Avith freshest voice of prime. 
And farthest Hellas hears the sacred strain. 



148 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGHTEB. 

IX. 
Yet many years had Delphi hiin untrod 

By heroes who were in the Trojan war ; 
But now to land and family and God 

They had returned in spite of adverse star, 

And leaped the human and celestial bar ; 
Again they gathered at the Delphic call, 

Which they had heard resounding near and far, 
To come and hold a mighty festival. 

X. 

Those Grecian men were fain their grand return 
In that most sacred town to celebrate; 

They had no more in foreign land to yearn 
For wife and home, or haply to await 
On bloody bridge of war the blow of fate; 

A day of joy, yet not without a tear. 

For each had lost what Time could never mate ; 

Again heroic shapes from Troy drew near. 

XI. 

The first was Nestor, aged man and wise. 

Whose snowy beard would brush the Delphic 
shrine, 

As he unto the God gave sacrifice ; 

In burning Troy he saw the strifeful sign, 
And homeward fled at once across the brine ; 

That city's fall was for his glance the end, 
He would not further probe the ways divine. 

The will of Gods he sought not to transcend. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 149 

XII. 

Next Spartan Menclaus thither came, 

Who wandered long, yet reached at last his 
home, 

With Helen still his wife, but all men's fame; 
Far, far into the East he had to roam, 
And cut a path unknown through salty foam ; 

When he the wiles of Proteus had outdone, 
And through old Egypt's mystic land had 
come, 

He caught beneath all changing forms the One. 

XIII. 

Ulysses, too, at Delphi now appears. 

Though his return was greatest of them all, 

He fought and wandered homeward twenty years, 
He saw strange lands and beings magical, 
With giants strove, who sought him to enthrall. 

He passed the Underworld of ghostly forms, 
Where all the shades gave answer to liis call, 

Then back to home on earth outrode the storms. 

XIV. 

He was the man who pried below, above ; 

The dear Unknown he made his daily guest. 
With the Impossible he was in love, 

Beyond the ken of men he took his test; 

With bold emprise he plunged into the West, 
Whose far domains he first of mortals trod, 

Yet on the bound of worlds he could not rest, 
He sought to burst the limit of the God. 



150 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XV. 

O Chian voice, could I to mine but tell 

As thou to thine his wondrous tale hast told, 
Again would flow the deep Pierian well 

In which are seen the ages to unfold; 

All Time would move as I my leaves unrolled, 
And out my lines would step the man to-day, 

Who to my music would the world uphold : 
But stop — mine is another tale — away. 

XVI. 

With him his wife had come, Penelope, 

Hers was the steadfast heart, most loyal, true ; 

Yet prudence joined she to fidelity. 

She kept her husband's home and country too^ 
Whereby he ever could return anew ; 

Well she deserved with him the equal part 
Of honor now to the most honored due — 

The wisest head had paired the truest heart. 

XVII. 

So gathered round the fane the heroes great, 
Now old and full of silent suffering, 

To hear the past, their deeds to celebrate, 
Some little joy into their lives to bring. 
And dull awhile the point of sorrow's sting; 

Their days were full of deep-remembered pain, 
Though they had taken Troy and slain its king. 

And had returned to land and home again. 



IPHWENIA AT DELPHI. 151 

XVIII. 

And e'en the Delphic God was one of those 
Who out the East to Hellas had returned ; 

Apollo smote in Troy the Greeks as foes, 

The God had not the trend of Time discerned, 
Yet through his error he his wisdom learned. 

He, though a God, transformed his vast mistake, 
Whereby he had a new devotion earned ; 

Him, wisest God, the Greeks will not forsake. 

XIX. 

Fair maidens soon attuned the merry song, 
And interwove sweet sounds into the dance, 

While in their steps the Graces tripped along, 
At whose dear shapes the eye ftiUs in a trancd. 
And to a music seen is blent each glance ; 

A stream of mounted youths then overfills 

The rolling slopes which seem with steeds to 
prance ; 

Far the procession tosses mid the hills. 

XX. 

Soft flutes and frantic timbrels mingle joy. 
And fling on breathing air life's anodyne ; 

Where now have vanished all the ills of Troy? 
Ah, woe the word! what darker, deeper line 
That in the joyful strain doth intertwine ! 

Of Fates and Furies still breaks out the hymn, 
To jar the song around the fane divine, 

While o'er the Graces hover goblins grim : 



152 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXI. 

*' Forget us not, we too are in the song, 

Within each Grecian voice and soul we dwell 

We circle round about each Grecian throng, 
Upon this merry world we cast our spell. 
And Time the echo is of what we tell. — 

Hist, Hist! A foe we scent on Delphic air, 
Low-sounding up the vale we hear a knell, 

A stranger draweth near, beware, beware." 

XXII. 

The joyous festival had well begun, 

When lo ! a woman moves around the hill, 

And enters Delphi in the morning sun; 
She walks up to the clear Castalian rill. 
And drinks of it and hears its sweetest trill; 

She turns to pass into the town above ; 

But first in a deep glance she standeth still, 

Then slowly moves into the sacred grove. 

XXIII. 

Who is the lady of the look unknown ? 

Iphigenia — she without delay 
From port of Aulis had set out alone. 

Where she had landed only yesterday. 

And where again a thousand vessels lay. 
Tall ships of Barbary, which there did bring 

Her with Orestes o'er the watery way; 
The leader Thoas was, the Taurian King. 



IPinOENIA AT DELPHI. 153 

XXIV. 

Her name none knew, or "how she came, or when ; 

Nor made she haste her lineage to say, 
She flitted through the surgino- crowds of men, 

From every side she heard the bodeful lay 

Of Fates and Furies pierce the holiday ; 
In every deed entwined their lurid song, 

Which shot dark threads through colors bright 
and gay. 
Yet had their counterpart in all the throng. 

XXV. 

Her sorrow rose when she that song had heard 
Tinge with its discord all the Delphic dale, 

Nor could she to herself suppress the word : 

«* I see at home these monsters still prevail 
Which once I saw far Barbary assail ; 

But there they are put down and sway no more ; 
My Hellas hath beneath its joy a wail, 

It is not what it seemed to me before. 

XXVI. 
*• I hear but of the vengeful sack of Troy, 

The many men and women slaved or slain ; 
The spirit everywhere is to destroy. 

Such deeds, I know, leave tinct in man their 
grain, 

What he hath done, comes back to him again, 
The city burnt a wraith of vengeance hath 

Which the mad victor's heart will rend amain 
And him will smite in turn with his own wrath. 



154 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXVII. 

" I see that in my land I have again to do 

What I at Tauris with the years have done, 
To give my spirit's offering anew, 

Change vengeful father to the gentle son ; 

Another Troy must on this soil be won, 
Not by fierce arms or furious conflagration, 

All Troy, the East and West, must be made one 
In helpful deed with the Hellenic nation." 

XXVIII. 
So moved the woman lone among the Greeks, 

By men unrecognized in her own land ; 
To learn the story of the time she seeks, 

From all she hears of Agamemnon's band. 

The mighty deed done on the Trojan strand. 
The vah)r bursting red in streams of blood ; 

She feels the war-beat to a fever fanned, 
As round each singer men admiring stood. 

XXIX. 

But soon she caught the fragment of a strain 

That waved the air more mellow than the rest, 
And as she neared the spot, it swelled again. 

And sounded, as it sweetly rose, more blest; 

She stood and looked from a small hilly crest. 
Above the shoulders of the listening crov/d ; 

She saw an ancient bard, from whose deep 
breast 
The tender notes were wellinjr clear and loud. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 155 

XXX. 

It was the bard who in Mycenas sang 

Lono- since when she was but a little maid; 
His deep bass-voice had now a melting pang, 

Round his great thoughts the nimble fancies 
played, 

As his white beard on toying breezes strayed ; 
His winged words agleam would flit the air, 

Like long thin cloudlets through the welkin 
frayed. 
Was twirled in passing wind his blanclied hair. 

XXXI. 

Thus .looked and sang that bard Meonides, 

Who hymned so well the famous Trojan woe, 
Who knew fatality in all degrees. 

As it was stamped on men long, long ago ; 

Like him, this singer too had felt the blow 
Of deep-dispensing Gods, for he was blind; 

Yet deeper, purer was the inner flow, 
As he the world more clearly saw in mind. 

XXXIL 

She glided through the crowd and heard the song ; 

It sang the wrath which stirred Achilles dre:\d, 
When he rose up against a Grecian wrong 

Done by the King who was the Army's head, 

That wrongful King, it was her father dead ; 
The Ruler and the Hero caused the strife, 

Whereby not they, but their true people bled. 
And many a gallant chieftain lost his life. 



156 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXXIII. 
Ah, fateful, furious was that song of wrath, 

The words of blood poured out the deeds of 
blood I 
But a far deeper note the singer hath, 

Which sang Achilles imaging the good, 

Forgiving to his foes in tender mood ; 
The Hero true she saw in him arise. 

Not by the cruel deed, but brotherhood; 
It was the image of her sacrifice. 

XXXIV. 

Great was her joy, when in her low disguise 
She heard her act wind through the Hero's lot, 

How he to vision of her life did rise, 

Though oftentimes she was by him forgot, 
And he in mad revenge would slay and plot; 

Still he would soon bethink himself again, 
The Leader he forgave, and then would not 

Slay Priam old for dear Patroclus slain. 

XXXV. 

The singer struck a newer, sadder strain, 

The piteous tale of Agamemnon's fate, 
How he at home by his own wife was slain, 

How she her hearth with lust did desecrate; 

The story on the daughter's heart-strings ate, 
Of her own mother and her father sung 

To all assembled Greeks, both small and great ; 
Her lips turned pale and down her head she hung : 



IPHIGENIA AT DEPLHI. 157 



XXXVI. 



** Ye Gods I the mighty Leader of the Greeks 
Is butchered like an ox within its stall 1 

Return to home he hath not, which he seeks ; 
Instead of it he hears death's sudden call 
Just as he steps into his pahice hall ; 

Return is not for him from Trojan strife, 
Reveuge, not Love, sits on Mycenas's wall, 

With broken vows that lap the blood of life. 

XXXVII. 

" O mother, mother, what a great mistake 

For thee and me thy vengeful lesson was ; 
Thou boldly slewest husband for my sake, 

And yet I was not dead, thou hadst no cause 

To overturn the deity's last laws ; 
Thus err we, when we take into our hands 

The justice which the Gods without our flaws, 
In foresight far, dispense to men and lands." 

XXXVIII. 

More deeply still sobbed Agamemnon's daughter : 

*' Then such am I, and of such parents born. 
Of parents' parents slain in kindred slaughter ! 

Methinks till now I never felt forlorn; 

Oh might I never see to-morrow morn ! 
Can I now change ancestral bloody strands, 

Release from Furies' fang the bo3ora torn, 
Oh can I whiten still these gory hands I " 



158 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXXIX. 

The bard began a milder lay to sing, 

Which soothed with tender notes her hapless 
pain, 

It was the lay of her own offering 

At Aulis by the sea, where she was slain, 
Yet saved, that she might do her deed again ; 

Lost Helen's restoration there she earned, 
And freedom gave to clear the guilty stain ; 

By her deed, too, the Greek has now returned. 

XL. 

The song's deep solace bore her in its flood. 
She felt that she had stemmed her house's guilt, 

And stanched the ever-flowing stream of blood. 
Which, in the time of old Thyestes spilt, 
Had stained each kindred sword from point to 
hilt; 

But yet more deeply ran the tuneful word : 
A new Greek world, by her to be now built, 

Had to prophetic strain the poet stirred : 

XLL 

*' I yet shall touch her with this aged hand. 
For I have heard in truth she is not dead. 

But is still living in a far-off land, 
That she on Dian's altar never bled, 
But by the Goddess she away was led, 

Until the strifeful Trojan time be past, 
And Helen be to home returned who fled ; 

Then will she too return to Greece, the last. 



irHIGENIA AT DELFIII. 109 

XLII. 

*' This last return will be the greatest, best; 

To end of Time she will in Hellas stay ; 
I have deep faith it is the God's behest, 

That she no longer shall remain away. 

Who gave herself for all upon that day; 
And some great blessing she will with her bring, 

When to Apollo's fane she comes to pray. 
And bears anew to us her offering. 

XLIII. 

** She cannot long be absent from us still, 
I feel the very point of time draw near 

When she, in coming home, will all fulfill, 
And in this Delphic seat she will appear. 
Led by the love of her own people dear; 

All have returned but her, e'en the lost wife, 
Metliinks that she already must be here. 

This day, this spot is telling of her life." 

XLIV. 

She listened to her piteous fate, but kept 

Within distressful heart the bursting sigh ; 
Yet inwardly at her own tale she wept, 

A lonely tear would wander to her eye, 

The silent herald of her sympathy. 
She seemed to think it was another's lot, 

When she beheld the maid at Aulis die ; 
That she the suflferer was, she quite forgot. 



160 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XLV. 

O woman, woman! O thou image truest 

Which sorrow moulds in its \ong painful stress ; 

Only to be compassionate thou knewest, 

Thou didst not Icuow it was thine own distress 
That touched tliy soul of self-forgetfulness; 

On thee comes back thy pity's overflow, 

Which always through another must thee bless, 

Een that thou art not dead thou scarce dost know. 

XLVI. 
Yet one fixed mystery she could not break, 

She saw that she a guilt untold had brought 
On one who was mistaken for her sake ; 

Her death to quit, the darkest crime was 

wrought ; 
That crime was done but for a phantom thought ; 
For her she saw a father slain, a mother stained, 
Fate seemed at last to have her life-thread 
caught, 
In voiceless woe unto herself she plained : 

XL VII. 

" Of being's source to be the enemy, 

The fateful child to be, though innocent, 
Through whom both parents guilty are and die — 

It wraps the Gods in deep bewilderment. 

O why have I been darkly hither sent? 
It is the Fates who turn on me their power : 

To their decree I shall at last be bent, 
They come and I must yield — it is their hour. 



IFUIGENIA AT DELriU. IGl 

XLVIII. 

*• I too must be a link of that long chain 

Which hangs from Tantalus, and ever will; 
To slay mine own and by them to be slain, 

Is the last law which I must too fulfill. 

— No, no ; 'tis madness; I shall conquer still, 
Transform my birth into a source of good, 

I destiny shall whelm into my will. 
And guilt of Tantalids cleanse from my blood." 

XLIX. 

But hark ! a fiendish laughter scoffs the air 
Yet mingled with a wild demoniac pain; 

Just as the words drop from the woman there 
The Fates and Furies howl and hiss again: 
*' Forget us not, we sing the Delphic strain; 

See 1 another woman comes with demons' powers ! 
Here still our ancient realm we shall main- 
tain. 

The fane, the God, the woman too is ours." 

L. 

Meanwhile the crowd rushed to the wall to gaze 
Far down the slope, beyond the Delphic dale, 

Till where the blue Corinthian waters raise 
On gentle throbbing waves the nodding sail, 
Or heave on high the reeling bark more frail; 

The silvery sparkle flashes into view, 
Or traces out a momentary trail, 

Then vanishes into the billows blue. 

11 



162 AGAMEMNON'S BAUGIITEE. 

LI. 
Above those azure pulses of the deep, 

Uprearing from the valley rose a train, 
It slowly curled about the mouutain steep 

Through pointed rocks athwart its pathway 
lain, 

At times it seemed to grapple might and main. 
As if in mortal wrestle with the way. 

Which showed a fierce resistance, but in vain ; 
The line kept creeping up, and made no stay. 

LII. 
When it had reached at last the Delphic gate. 

It seemed to turn upon itself and think, 
As if it for a time did hesitate, 

Standing alone with doubt on some deep brink, 

Which for a moment made the courage sink ; 
It would not enter in the sacred wall, 

Smit by some sudden scruple it did shrink. 
Or fear again a hidden guilt or fall. 

LIII. 
But yielding soon it came into the town, 

For many voices shouted strong request, 
It marched in still procession up and down, 

All flocked to see who was the newest guest. 

They marked one shape far more than all the 
rest. 
The dame with penitential, downcast eye, 

Which told the sorrowing talc of years unblest ; 
She never once looked up as she passed by. 



IPHIQENIA AT DELPHI. 163 

LIV. 
Helen it was, who had from Troy returned, 

Once more in her old Spartan home she dwelt, 
The deepest lesson of the world had learned, 

The sharpest pang of human life had felt. 

The fiercest blow to her own land had dealt, 
And to her spouse, though he had all forgiven ; 

She came to the shrine of Artemis and knelt 
And looked up in her face, with rue heart-riven. 

LV. 

The heroes then could not restrain the tear 

At such great beauty to such sorrow bound; 
They wept for her, their image still most dear. 

And for themselves, who such distress had 
found. 

And left so many friends cold inTroy's ground ; 
Fell Memory shot deep into the heart 

The look of brothers slain, or starved, or 
drowned, 
And in themselves they felt the deathly dart. 

LVI. 
The mighty multitude of people wept, 

It would have broken up the festival, 
If fairest Helen had not forward stepped, 

And gave her drug which men Nepenthe call; 

At once it soothed the sorrows of them all. 
At her sweet look they soon forgot their pain, 

In her they saw the rise out of the fall, 
Great was the loss, but greater still the gain. 



164 agamemno:n'S daughteb. 

LVII. 

The tender lines of hidden suffering 

Wove all their saddest story through her face, 
But round them other lines did gently cling, 

Which would the sharp, remorseful thought 
erase, 

And softly write forgiveness there and grace ; 
So could she quench the very grief she made, 

Though trouble gone would leave for proof its 
trace ; 
The guilt had fled, but still had left its shade. 

LVIII. 

Out of her life there shone calm penitence, 
With steadfast will her deed yet to atone ; 

Though never more she could have innocence, 
She still had something won for what was gone 
That to remorse she was not left alone ; 

She had for error won the compensation, 

She knew the thorny way, the heart-torn moan, 

And through the lapse she knew the restoration. 

LIX. 
In Troy already she had often tried 

Her heavy lot of servitude to flee. 
In agony of self-reproach she cried 

That Aphrodite's thrall she would not be, 

Yet could herself not of the Goddess free. 
She fought within, the Grecians fought without. 

To save her and themselves to liberty ; 
Both of their struggles were a ten years' doubt. 



IPIIIGENIA AT DELFIII. 1G5 

LX. 

OncG Aphrodite to her chamber came, 

When Paris had been shiin, her Trojan spouse, 

And she had willed henceforth to cleanse her 
blame ; 
The Goddess sought desire again to rouse, 
That it might snap afresh her holy vows. 

And promised youth's sweet victory anew. 

With every potent charm Love's zone endows, 

Would give a young heroic husband too. 

LXI. 

The Goddess tried her far away to lure, 
To distant East, to curse of Babylon, 

Where she would have no struggle to endure ; 
Where she could lie forever in the sun 
Which showed no guilt, no deed to be undone. 

But she resisted all that blandishment. 
She did the temple of the Goddess shun. 

And to her soul's own trysting-place she went. 

LXII. 

Yet Memnon found her once, the son of Morn, 
And prayed that he might bear her to the day. 

Far in the Orient where he was born, 

And with him there to shine the early ray 
Which lightly wakes the world in jocund play ; 

But she refused, she would return to Greece, 
Back to her home would walk the thorny way, 

And there work out in sorrow her release. 



IQQ AGAMEMNON'S DAVGIITEB. 

LXIII. 

Then Memnon left, he was the hist of all, 
Most brave, most beautiful of Troy's array ; 

At once he dashed out of the Trojan wall, 
And fighting fell upon that very day, 
Foreknowing well what in the battle lay; 

As he breathed out his breath, that hour Troy fell, 
Its soul was dead and in him passed away, 

The Gods departed from its citadel. 

LXIV. 

The Greeks rushed in the gate, the city burned. 
The people and the aged king they slew; 

Whom once Achilles' wrath had spared, they 
spurned, 
The captives' prayer they would not listen to, 
The cry of babes no tear of pity drew. 

Vengeance they show with all its rage unblest, 
Nor think that they shall suffer what they do. 

By waking Furies fierce in their own breast. 

LXV. 

The Greeks erelong the wretched Helen found, 

They bore her hastily into a tent, 
With hands and feet in triple cordage bound, 

And in their wrath at once they would have 
sent 

Her soul to Hades for its punishment ; 
But holy Calchassaid: ♦« It must not be. 

She hath a spirit new, a new intent. 
And of her guilty life she now is free. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 1C7 

LXVI. 

*' She hath her evil deed in full undone, 
She is renewed by her contrition deep, 

And her young days of blamelessness hath won ; 
Troy could no longer changed Helen keep, 
Yet with her lost it lies a burning heap; 

Home she will now return without a stain. 
Though often she the past distress be weep. 

She is restored, is Helen once again." 

Lxvn. 

So spake the priest of her mid blazing Troy. 

But now she comes to seek the Delphic fane, 
To have a share of all that tearful joy, 

A share of the great loss and greater gain, 

Of all those sad returns to learn the bane. 
To learn the blessing which doth renovate. 

And Phoel)us too, returned, to greet again, 
Beholding e'en a God regenerate. 

LXVIH. 
The way to Delphi ran beside the sea, 

Which gently rose and seemed to stroke the 
shrine 
Of Aphrodite, Love's fair deity; 

There Helen once beheld the form divine, 

And from the lio;htnino; heard a voice malign 
Commanding her to cross to Troy the wave: 

But now the Goddess showed a milder sign. 
And spake in tones subdued these speeches grave : 



1C8 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGllTEB. 

LXIX. 

*' O Helen, I, the Goddess, must confess, 

In thy self-conquest thou luist conquered uie ; 

In thy great struggle felt I mine own stress. 
And now I feel that I must change with thee, 
Or yield to time and pale mortality. 

My Trojan home doth lie a ruiued heap. 
Ah me! what shall I do henceforth to be? 

My ancient throne I can no longer keep. 

LXX. 

" With all the Gods I have old Troy to leave. 

The spirit new into my life instil; 
Yet I must not mo of myself bereave. 

Love must not perish. Love I can be still. 

Though all transfigured with another will, 
Which binds the family in its sweet grace, 

Whence Love shall flow till it the world shall fill. 
And reaching up, it shall the Gods embrace." 

LXXI. 

The voice had ceased, but left a vision strange, 
Upon which Helen all her journey thought : 

" The God has then along with man to change. 
To be the God who man has truly taught, 
To be the spirit of the spirit sought, 

From whom eternally the transformation 
Into the man and world is overwrought, 

Whereby the God is one in all mutation." 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 169 

LXXII. 

So Armve Helen came throu(?h guilt to thouocht; 

The bottom of her mystery to find 
By looking deep into herself she sought; 

But quickly out the reaches of her minci 

The thought would flit, and leave all dark bo- 
hind. 
Still glimpses flashed through mystic meditation, 

Of one whose love of self took in her kind, 
Whereby she saw her own in man's salvation. 

LXXIIL 
There Helen stands amid the Grecian throng, 

More beautiful she seemeth than before, 
She shows the depths revealing struggles long ; 

Not youthful bloom, which they did once adore, 

But all the wealth that flows from Time's rich 
store 
Seems now to lie within her graven face. 

Whose melting lines would tremble evermore, 
And tender throbs would follow every trace. 

LXXIV. 
Again the Grecian heroes gather round, 

Her to behold, with worship in the heart ; 
In her new look is healed the last old wound. 

Each knows himself to be of her a part; 

He, too, of destiny had felt the dart 
For sharing in the guilt of Trojan life. 

Yet was a wiser man for all the smart 
When he to harmony returned from strife. 



170 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXV. 

Then came the baril with harp and tuneful voice, 
Began to touch the sure responsive string, 

Which with his note would weep or would rejoice ; 
He, too, had been at Troy and felt the sting, 
He knew the triumph and the suffering ; 

He, too, had thence returned, in deed and song; 
His deep-changed strain he now began to sing. 

As ho stood up before her in the throng: 

LXXVI. 
*' O Helen, I am old, and I am blind, 

M}^ human strength, I feel, is nearly spent; 
But I have left in clearer sight my mind. 

Thee to behold still supereminent, 

And see new glories in thy beauty blent; 
Thou hast preserved all of thine ancient treasures. 

And to them pain and gain of life hast lent ; 
Fair thou art now beyond my Grecian measures. 

Lxxvn. 

"I sang thy youth in wildest strains of youth. 

Into my line I put thy precious bloom, 
Thy beauty was for me the highest truth. 

For aught but thee the world had not the 
room ; 

I knew not then the silent spreading doom 
Which over thee and over me was hung, 

That we must march not to, but through the 
tomb, 
Return alive once more, though old, yet young. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 171 

LXXVIII. 
*' O might I see again what once I saw, 

The hill and sky and sea, the Earth's sweet 
flower ! 
Behold thee beautiful without a flaw, 

And feel thee flash into my sight the power 

Whose spell into a moment fleets the hour ! 
My Grecian clime without mine eye is cold, 

It seemeth to have lost Time's fairest dower; 
O Helen, I am blind and I am old. 

LXXIX. 

'* But I must stop the Muse of aged regret, 
And sing what recompense the Gods bestow: 

The senses' wilder rapture is now let, 

The sunset calm, but not the sunrise glow 
Is mine ; the less I see, the more I know; 

Now might I build of thy return the lay ; 
I sing no more the battle's overthrow. 

The ecstasy of joy, or love's light play. 

LXXX. 

" I have returned, my song has too returned. 
In tender mood from furious Trojan vein ; 

It has in thine its own new woild discerned, 
And tunes to thy deep soul its inward strain. 
That the great loss doth bring the greater gain ; 

And all these Grecians have returned with thee. 
Not over Troy we chant the loud refrain. 

But over our own selves the victory. 



172 AGAMEMNON'S DAUOIITER. 

LXXXI. 

*' But there is one whom I still deeply miss, 
The one who giive herself that Hellas be, 

Whom as a little maid I oft would kiss. 
When at the hearth she sat upon my knee. 
And listened rapt to childhood's minstrelsy ; 

The consecrated one of all, I say, 

She too must home return as well as we, 

Return to feast with us this very day." 

LXXXII. 

Out of the multitude then Helen moved; 

She felt upholden by the bard's strong word. 
And all its truth in her own bosom proved; 

Yet she too felt the selfsame loss which stirred 

Him to the tender tuneful plaint she heard, 
Till sense of loss turned one still cry for her 

Who always gave herself for those who erred, 
But in her own life never once did err. 

Lxxxni. 

So tender flowed the thoughts of that high dame 
That from them fell to earth a tearful dew; 

Unto the border of the throng she came, 

There she beheld a face she thought she knew," 
She stopped, astonished at the sudden view, 

As if she saw a spirit on the air; 

And when her stricken speech she could renew, 

She spake unto that face before her there : 



irHIGENIA AT DELrilL 173 

LXXXIV. 

" Iphigeuia, my hope, hast Ihou returned? 

And with the other weeping Greeks art here ? 
For thee alone we all just now have yearned, 

And yet my sense of sight I have to fear — 

Mine eye doth paint thy picture on its tear ; 
Returned thou hast from a much further land 

Than Troy, I ween; from Hades drawest near. 
Once more to make complete our earthly band. 

LXXXV. 

" Ah yes, thou hast returned whence none return. 
Thou art the shade my longing makes of thee ; 

Thy life on earth to live I daily burn ; 
But thou hast burst the last captivity, 
And wilt no more the tomb's dark vassal be; 

Thou hast returned, 1 hear thy highest call, 
Now first I feel that I am truly free, 

Thou hast returned from death, to save us all." 

LXXXVI. 

She spake the hintful words, yet scarcely durst 
Draw near and touch in love the ghostly hand ; 

Yet Helen was of all the Greeks the first 

To know the priestess strange in her own land. 
What lay in her return to understand ; 

Of womanhood the twain most different — 
Yet in one plan complete they were both 
planned, 

Two lives in one great providence were blent. 



174 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXVII. 

The one through deepest fall could highest rise, 

And from her stain become again unstained ; 
The other rose through perfect sacrifice, 

Without the fall she stainless aye remained; 

Yet each of them her own true good attained, 
Each only through the other grew complete, 

Both sides were one, in thought divine con- 
tained ; 
Now speaks the seeming ghost in language meet : 

LXXXVIII. 
" I am the same and I was never slain. 

To Lower Hades I have yet to go, 
Where dark Proserpine has her sunless reign; 

Yet through one Hades I have passed in woe, 

I have come back to tell you what I know ; 
In far barbaric world has been my stay, 

Where I was borne divinely long ago, 
When I at Aulis vanished out the day. 

LXXXIX. 

" But tell, what sad yet happy time is this. 
Wherein ye make the noble festival ? 

I feel the sorrow mingled in the bliss, 
A mellow joy that ripens from the fall, 
A gain that doth its very pain recall ; 

A melting change flows out the common heart. 
Ye noble Greeks have bled at Troy for all, 

But the old wound is healed a better part. 



IPIIIGENIA AT DELPHI. 175 

xc. 

" I think now of another holiday, 
The last I saw in hiojh Mycenae's hall, 

When Paris thither bent his doomf ul way, 
And every Grecian soul he made his thrall, 
Who in the glances of his eye might fall; 

Yet would I not a single person name, 

We all were blind, the guilt belonged to all, 

And to the Gods we all have paid the blame. 

XCI. 

" But now we arc restored to Greece at last, 
Though while we sing with joy, we have to 
weep, 

For with us we have brought all of the past ; 
What we have won, we shall forever keep. 
And the full harvest of our sorrows reap ; 

Here shall we gather on Apollo's hill. 

Where rests the sacred sun upon the steep. 

And harmony flows down the Muses' rill." 

XCII. 

From Helen, then, the people turn away, 

And Helen turns, with her new look of love, 
As to some sky-descended God to pray, 

Whose lofty presence fills the sacred grove ; 

To Iphigenia m11 the people move, 
They seek to near the center of their life. 

Attuned to that new music from above. 
Transfigured to her spirit out of strife. 



176 AGAMEMNON' S DAUGIITER. 

XCIII. 

They choose her priestess of Apollo's fane, 

The oracle she will henceforth declare ; 
The double word she will to men explain, 

Of breath divine she also hath a share ; 

She will inform with speech the Delphic air, 
And add thereto a measure musical ; 

The true Hellenic spirit everywhere 
She feels, the first, then speaks it clear to all. 

XCIV. 

In her the new Apollo finds his speech, 

Not he who once against the Greeks did fight. 
But he who will his faithful people teach 

The word of wisdom and the deed of right ; 

He hath become the God of inner light, 
Transformed from outer sheen of Eastern sun ; 

When back to Hellas turned his glances bright, 
Another character divine he won. 

XCV. 

As once the self-same God in daily toil 

Served King Admctus of fair Thessaly, 
And labored like a bondman of the soil. 

Till of himself he wrought a being free, 

And rose therefrom into a deity ; 
So now the servile Trojan time is past. 

To which the Grecian God was held in fee ; 
He has with other Greeks returned at last. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 177 

XCVI. 
With him, too, all at Delphi was transformed, 

The very stones sprang into temples rare, 
And by a soul divine within were warmed, 

Each block sought in itself to be the fair 

White fane, which perfect rose upon the air ; 
To music sweet the shapeless forms were trimmed. 

All marched in place out of their rocky lair. 
While lofty old Parnassus to them hymned. 

XCVII. 
And helpless marble at a touch would spring 

Into life-seeming shapes of look divine: 
The Muses, who the sweetest strain could sing, 

Apollo Avho from stone began to shine, 

And chant his Delphic lay with Sisters nine. 
Forth Gods would start at Artist's strong com- 
mand ; 

He only smote Avith chisel on a line, 
But had a heart-stroke beating from his hand. 

XCVIII. 

There is the transformation, too, of man 
To one who looks before and looks behind. 

Who in himself doth past and future scan, 
Pours all the vasty world into his mind. 
And cannot rest till in it truth he find; 

Who trains his body, too, until it be 

The semblance beautiful of all mankind, 

Revealed in games and dance and poesy. 



178 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XCIX. 
The Gods too were transformed in that great time, 

Bursting the bound that everywhere had stood, 
They upwards rose into Olympian prime. 

Cast off the ugly form of idol rude, 

Which could but show the brand of linitude ; 
That was the happy hour they were set free, 

They passed from lust to love, from greed to 
good. 
From red revenge they turned to charity. 

C. 

Aud Delphi was the lofty seat thereof. 

The bringerof the mighty transformation. 

Which came to earth and man and Gods above, 
It was of all the world a new creation. 
Whose fragrance sweetest fell on that Greek 
nation ; 

The priestess now was borne into her place, 
To bring about the final restoration, 

Which would the Greek unite with all hia race. 

CI. 

But see ! what new procession at the gate ? 

It moves with stately march into the fane. 
And at its head a man of royal state : 

Thoas it is, the king with all his train, 

In vesture tinct with many-shaded grain. 
Not in white play of Grecian fold on fold. 

Whose simple ripple flows without a stain, 
But decked in shifting hues aud shining gold. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 179 

CII. 
Soon in the train the swell of music rose 

In many a blending tone and winding turn, 
Which leaped up with the joys, dropped with the 
woes, 

As thev in human feeling wordless burn. 

Or can, unsatisfied with speech, but yearn; 
Then voices rose together in a cry 

Of suffering, or song of struggle stern, 
Woven in fancies bright of minstrelsy. 

cm. 

And mighty bards were in that lordly train, 

Who there began to chant around the king. 
In measures new, a strange enraptured strain. 

Whose very words would climb and kiss and 
cling. 

Yet in a melody were ever vanishing 
Out of the world of sight to realms unseen, 

As they would hymn the noble offering. 
Which made the stream of time flow down more 
clean. 

CIV. 
The Greeks looked on that King in wonderment, 

All what they were he was, yet he was more; 
Unto their Art Humanity he lent, 

The deepest love he joined to widest lore. 

In him the Graces gave to worth their store, 
In him had vanished quite the gentile hate, 

Barbarian now ho would the Greek restore. 
The bound of nations was for him no fate. 



180 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

CV. 

They asked him from what region he had come, 
Whence he such wisdom in his life had learned ; 

Was it the gathered treasures of his home, 
Or of some other land where people burned 
To find what knowledge sought, what virtue 
earned ? 

He was a Greek, yet Greek beyond their ken, 
In him a brother they indeed discerned, 

Yet not to them alone, but to all men. 

CVI. 

To queries yet unspoken, Thoas spake : 

" This priestess is the one who hath us taught 

And all our world the spirit's bond to break; 
She came to us a sacrifice unsought. 
When she to the altar was a victim brought 

By her own people ; still the Taurians say. 

An image fell from heaven, that hath wrought 

Us to herself by her long priestly stay. 

CVII. 
*' She hath the wild barbarian conquered. 

Not by the vengeance of a Trojan war ; 
The savage world she hath in triumph led, 

But not enchained to a prisoner's car ; 

No city sacked, no town in blackened char, 
Doth mark her path like ghostly skeleton ; 

She to her soul hath changed the Near and Far, 
And freedom for a prisoned world hath won. 



IPEIQENIA AT DELPHI, 181 

CVIII. 

" Now she hath come to save her own fair land, 
As she hath saved ah-eady Barbary; 

Home I have brought her with this grateful band, 
I see no more in Greek an enemy, 
The surest sign whereof is. Here am I. 

Her sacrifice henceforth the Greeks must show, 
And from revenge live unto charity, 

Which out the bosom doth the Furies throw. 

CIX. 

*« When Greeks have blotted out their spirit's 
bound 

Which them from Barbary doth separate. 
They have the holy medicine then found. 

Which will forever cure their sickly state, 

By taking off that outer world of Fate; 
And when the Furies out their breast Ihey cast. 

Pursuing men no more in vengeful hate, 
The Furies, too, will cease pursuit at last." 

ex. 

At this strong regal word, forth from the train 

Orestes stepped, in presence magical; 
On Delphic sacred ground he stood again. 

From which he once had lied and leaped I ho 
wall, 

And ran with horrid cries funereal, 
By snaky Furies down the rocks pursued, 

Till he to Tauris had obeyed the call : 
Now of the monsters freed, he calmly stood. 



182 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEH. 

CXI. 

All Greece had seen his spell and pitied hira, 

Yet for his ransom knew not what to do ; 
For Greeks themselves were prey to vengeance 
grim, 

As well as he, they needed pity too; 

And now, when they beheld Orestes new. 
They could not think that he was truly cured ; 

Near to his tranquil countenance they drew, 
And then by word and touch themselves assured. 

CXII, 
It was a time of wild astonishment ; 

Orestes to their thousand queries said : 
" For wise Apollo's sister, Artemis, I went ; 

I trailed the mighty sea to Tauris dread, 

For so the God's deep oracle I read ; 
There in a fane was spoke the flaming word, 

Whose light at once me out of madness led. 
When I in my dark trance the priestess heard. 

CXIII. 
" First from that speech myself I truly learned, 

I rose renewed, and looked in vision free; 
My thought flashed forward, backward, in me 
burned, 

Till all the circling deed I seemed to see 

Take in the past, take in futurity. 
I saw the vengeance which man wreaks on man 

Turn back on him, and the avenger be; 
His curse on others is but his own ban. 



IPHiaENIA AT DELPHI. 183 

CXIV. 

" That priestess strange I found to be my sister, 
Whom I, perturbed, knew not, but deemed as 

dead, 
Since that dark day the Greeks at Aulis missed her 

From Dian's temple, whither she was led. 

This is the sister whom the God instead 
Of stony idol means to be adored ; 

Through her the fanged Furies from me fled. 
With her restored, am I and you restored." 

cxv. 

His word was done, but hark! what gnashing 
throng 

In maddened wind which out of Delphi blows ! 
And in that wind is heard a wailing song 

Which weaker, weaker in the distance grows, 

Yet wrathful still, as strain of dying foes. 
The pang of banishment that voice doth wring. 

And with it other voices mingle woes ; 
List, list! Again the Fates and Furies sing: 

CXVI. 

'< Farewell, O lovely Delphi, our last seat ! 

O Hellas dear, our ancient home, farewell ! 
The bitter hour has come for our retreat, 

In Thoas' word we Fates have heard our knell, 

The outer world we can no more compel ; 
Since Barbary hath changed its hate to love. 

We can no longer lay on man our spell ; 
Away ! we rule no more the Gods above." 



184 AGAMEMNON" S DAUOUTEB, 

CXVII. 

" Farewell, O lovely Delphi, our last seat ! 

O Hellas clear, our ancient home farewell ! 
The bitter hour has come for our retreat, 

We Furies now have heard Orestes tell 

The deadly tale which tolls to us our knell ; 
From out our clutch he has regained his soul, 

The inner world we can no more compel, 
Away I man is now free of our control." 

CXVIII. 

"Farewell, O lovely Delphi, our last seat I 
O Hellas dear, our ancient home farewell I 

The bitter hour has come for our retreat!" 
Thus parting strains of Fates and Furies fell 
Faintly, then faintly rose in dying swell : 

" The bitter hour has come for our retreat! 
O Hellas dear, our ancient home, farewell! 

Farewell, O lovely Delphi, our last seat!" 

CXIX. 

Behind the Delphic mountain soon they sank, 

Into its caverns deep they darkly sped; 
Castalian waters they no longer drank. 

Nor threatened happy Delphi overhead; 

The holy priestess has them banished. 
Where still by mountain dwarfs they are adored ; 

For Fates and Furies are not wholly dead. 
Though Aofaraemnon's daughter be restored. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 185 

cxx. 

But now in Delphi breathes another strain, 

Which rises out the rill of Castaly, 
And sings through vines and olive groves again, 

With its sweet cadence wreathes the farthest 
sea ; 

It is the joyous strain of Muses, free 
From savage monsters, which did them affray; 

For with the priestess won they liberty, 
And thus they hymned her and themselves that 
day ; 

CXXI. 
«♦ Now hast thou made thy deed, thyself complete ; 

Not till thou didst remove man's narrow bound, 
Could we in song thine own fair freedom greet; 

Thy brother's limits must thine own be found, 

Thou shalt not stand, till he rise from the 
ground ; 
In freeing him, thou art thyself set free. 

Thy sacrilice hath to thyself come round. 
And through another hath perfected thee. 

CXXII. 

" We sing thine Aulian, Taurian, Delphic deed ; 

Done for the sake of Greek and all mankind; 
But in the deed thou hast received the meed. 

Thou art now whole in character and mind. 

Thou and the world one harmony designed, 
Of human life thou hast well won the height, 

All in thyself, thyself in all dost find. 
And show what man will be in his own right. 



186 AGAMEMNOI^' S DAUGIlTEIi. 

cxxiir. 

*' Not thou alone, all are to be made whole, 

Each man is to become thine image true, 
And in his own reflect thy perfect soul, 

As thou hast done, will he forever do. 

Yet to us rises a still vaster view : 
The nations shall renounce for one another, 

Therein like thee, shall win their freedom too, 
When each shall look on each as its own brother." 

CXXIV. 

Such strains rose out the fount where Muses dwell. 
Last herald of the newer minstrelsy ; 

The perfect image floating in their well 
Did rise and walk in sight of mortal eye. 
Clad in the vesture Time shall on it try, 

Transfigured into music and sweet grace ; 

And all therein the mightier semblance could 
descry : 

The man's, the nation's, and the world's one face. 



Ipljigeixia. 



BlBLIOGRArillCAL. 

The foregoing poem, first published in 1885, has 
been out of the book market for some years. As it 
has won a few friends — enough of them apparently 
to keep it alive a while yet — who still speak of it oc- 
casionally, and ask after it, the book may be said 
to have acquired a certain right of resuscitation. 
Accordingly it appears again, with a small but bright 
spark of hope in its heart, dreaming that it may have 
another period of new life, in which to gain some 
more friends. 

Here the confession must be made that the former 
opportunity of the book was not the best. The first 
edition was badly printed, being the work of a foreign 
printer, who united excellent intentions with a small 
knowledge of English. Then the proof-reader was 
not a good one, being myself ; but proof-reading be- 
came paralyzed when the correction was pretty certain 
to be the means of introducing a new mistake into the 
types. Several times I have had the vexation of see- 
ing critical objections to the poem based upon a typo- 
grapliical error. About a dozen of these errors I have 
counted which are of the distressing kind ; that is, they 
pervert the sense or confound the reader. Still I do 

(187) 



188 IPHIGENIA. 

not pretend that this was the only thing that ailed the 
poem; after all, it was a much better printed book 
than Shakespeare's First Folio, which has not failed 
to make its way in the world. 

The reader will now understand wh}' I have long de- 
sired to give to this child of my brain a new dress. 
The whole work has been revised, the old misprints 
have been corrected, fresh errors have been guarded 
against by a due outlay of patience and care, and 
specially by a change of proof-reader. In addition, 
quite a number of alterations have been made, 
which, it is hoped, are improvements, being the result 
of friendly suggestion and gathered experience from 
many sources. Still there has been no attempt to re- 
write the book or essentially modify it ; to cleanse the 
channel of certain impurities, not to change the direc- 
tion of the stream has been the object. 

Another reason for its publication at the present 
time I may take the privilege of mentioning. It has 
its place in a series of works, which are now to be col- 
lected and printed, and which seek to embody the 
spirit of Hellenism as it unfolds in the life of an indi- 
vidual and in the life of a period. The book presents a 
phase of Greek antiquity transforming itself into the 
modern world and into a modern experience. Man}' 
such transformations have been recorded since the 
antique ages ; wonderful indeed is the capacity of the 
Greek soul for re-incarnation. Its earliest philoso- 
pher, Pythagoras, divined tlie deej^est truth of it 
and the most lasting. It has always to be born again, 
having its great and its little epochs. Such a period 
may be called a Renascence, though the limits of its 
influence be very small, though it be confined to one 
individual. 

But whatever be the view concerning the met- 
empsychosis of the Hellenic soul, rising and assum- 
ing new shapes in the ages, one thing I may atllrm 
as certain : the present book is a link in the chain 
which runs through and holds together the spiritutsl 
activity of an individual life. The time has arrived 



irniGENIA. 189 

for bringing tliis entire chain to light in a series of 
printed books, each of which, independent in itself, is 
yet interlinked with the rest. 

As I now look back at the writing of this poem, 
there comes to mind a little story connected with its 
origin, and with its relation to myself through a num- 
ber of 3^ears, which story ma^^ help illuminate certain 
points in it, and possibly the whole work. 

Personal. 

It may be taken for granted that the friends of an 
author wish to hear something of the history, inner and 
outer, of his book. Such a history may have as great 
value as the book itself. Criticism is becoming more 
and more an insight into development rather than a 
judgment, and development takes the author himself 
into account along with his work. 

I do not remember the exact time when the story of 
Iphigenia began to exert an influence ui)on me. But 
I am certain that the first strong impression came 
through reading Goethe's Iphigenia at Tauris many 
years ago. That poem on several lines opens the eyes 
of the lover of the Hellenic spirit, not simply by virtue 
of its poetic merit but through the exani[)lc it gives of 
the transfusion of the antique into tlie modern. It is 
old, 3'et it is new ; it is not an imitation or reproduction 
of some ancient classic model, it is original in the best 
sense, being a true literary evolution. 

Its influence must have been considerable, probably 
more than I was conscious of, since that influence was 
noticed and pointed out in a local periodical by Dr. 
W. T. Harris, then Superintendent of the Public Schools 
of St. Louis, in a review of Clarence, a dramatic poem 
written by me, during the years 1866-8, and printed 
some years later in a magazine. Still, I think that 
Goethe's poem impressed me then far more through its 
literary beauty, thanthroughits treatment of the legend. 
Of course the character of Iphigenia, as there por- 
trayed, I felt to be tlie central power of the poet's work, 
and her spiritual picture stayed v/ith me. 



190 IPHIGENIA. 

The liinc when the legend began to dawn upon mc in 
its full sweep and signiticance, Avas during my visit to 
Greece. At Aulis, where Iphigenia was sacrificed that 
the Greek fleet might sail and Helen be restored, the 
impression became overpowering ; it rose into an in- 
tense, sympathetic emotion. The innocent maiden, 
then, must give herself for the guilty woman. The fact 
dawned clear upon my mind that the legend hinted, and 
to a degree prefigured the story of Christ, who also 
was sacrificed for a sinful world. At once the most 
diverse peoples seemed to be linked together in one 
great thought. 80 those old Greeks had this concep- 
tion, which we usually call Christian ; j'et how differ- 
ent was their form of it ! The great mediatorial figure 
at theheai'tof their story was, not a man, but a woman. 

At Aulis the shape and the thought of Iphigenia 
crowded out everything else, as I now distinctly recol- 
lect, whenever I was alone. I rambled about the 
shore, I looked at the island in the bay, I went across 
to Chalcis ; always I was in the atmosphere of the 
Greek maiden who gave herself as a sacrifice for the 
restoration of the lost woman. I stayed at Aulis, 
which is now a small Albanian village, nearly two days, 
mid a wild tumult of impressions ; it was as if I had 
been present the whole time at the tragedy. Under 
such circumstances I began to see, in fact I was driven 
to see IiDhigenia and Helen in their relation to each 
other. These two farpous Greek women are counter- 
parts, both are necessary to the one complete legend, 
to the one total cycle of man's spiritual history. It 
also became apparent that, in any adequate treatment 
of the legend, the two women must be brought to- 
gether. 

I now began to feel that Euripides, to whom we arc 
chiefly indebted for our knowledge of Iphigenia, had 
not alwa3's grasped the true meaning of her story. 
The poet is naturally the best interpreter of the legend 
which his people have created. Such is, indeed, his 
highest function ; what lies in a dim mythical form, and 
in many fragments of tales among men, he is to bring 



IPHIGENIA. . 191 

to da^iiglit and to put together, and then to stamp 
with the image of beauty for all time. Euripides, in 
spite of his excellences, is not as great as the legend 
which he handles. To be sure, at the end of his 
Iphigenia at Aulis he rises for once to the height of 
the seer. But the call out of both his dramas on the 
subject of Iphigenia is that the legend must be re- 
written. That call has often been heard and answered 
from the time of Eui'ipides down to the present day. 

Such was the step taken at Aulis in this exi)erience 
with Iphigenia. I had never before been wrought u[) 
so intensely over a fiction ; still this fiction, through all 
time, has persisted as a fact more solid than granite. 
Those who wish to see a longer account of Aulis, of its 
scenery and impressions, can read it in the Walk in 
Hellas (^Chapter Seventh'). 

The further reflection came that this legend is still 
in the process of evolution. It is not to be re-told to- 
day in the old Greek sense, but in the modern sense. 
The ancient conception must remain — it is eternal ; 
still it has been unfolding some 2,500 years and more, 
into its true meaning, and it is not yet done unfolding. 
It must be re-written again and again, with every new 
age possibly, since the true legend is really as old as 
man and develops with him. 

Passing over the hills between Aulis and Delphi, on 
foot and alone most of the way, but sometimes behind 
the donkey with its master, I found pleasure in 
giving the legend various shapes. Naturally I thought 
of the dramatic form, which has dominated the story 
from the beginning, doubtless from the overpowering 
example of the three great Attic tragedians, all of whom 
have had something to do with the subject of Iphigenia. 
The action began to assume faint lines, and I think 
it was at Thebes that I wrote out the first slight sketch 
of an Ipliigenia at Aulis as I sat in a wineshop, wuth 
muleteers and drivers of cotton wagons noisily chatting 
their modern Greek dialect about me, but in wMiose 
speech I could catch many a word and many a turn of 
expression which had come down from the time of old 



192 IPHIGENIA. 

Homer. Iphigcnia, too, like the Greek tongue, must 
be modern yet ancient, and alive still in her sacrihce. 
Even the language she spoke became a li\dng presence 
to me. 

Arriving at Delphi, I found man}' other figures, 
historical and mytliical, crowding into the vision along 
with that of Agamemnon's Daughter. She was 
thought of there, for the fact stands recorded ; but I 
do not remember that the scheme of an Iphigenia at 
Delphi ever hovered before my mind during my some- 
what protracted sojourn. The necessity of such an 
addition to the legend came later in my experience, 
though I must have already known that Goethe had 
planned a work of that name during his Italian 
journey. 

Still in Delphi and in the Delphic region I absorbed 
the local scenery, and I felt the subtle connection which 
exists between the environment of nature and the 
great historical fact which has arisen in that environ- 
ment. Delphi was once the spiritual center of the 
whole Hellenic race, which found its unity in the oracle, 
though never hi a political organism. Delphi, there- 
fore, gave the picture of the priestess, whose influence 
reached even barbaric peoples, and showed how a 
woman, doubtless with the aid of wise counselors, be- 
came for a time the grand mediatorial powder of all 
Greece. The legend did not go bej^ond the fact lying 
before the e3'es of every Greek, in the place which it 
gave to Iphigenia. To Ije sure the priestess was but 
the voice of the God who spoke through her ; but to 
be such a voice and to hear the God when he speaks, 
is quite the highest gift of mortals. 

Tlie sojourn at Delphi having come to a close, I 
went to Corinth, and thence walked across the country 
to Mj'CenjB. The excavations of Schliemann had been 
concluded, most of the antiquities had been trans- 
ported to Athens and elsewhere ; but the great walls, 
the mountainous citadel, the Lions' Gate, the treasury 
of Atreus, and above all the landscape could not be 
carried off so easily ; thus the best part of Mycenae 



IPHIGENIA, 193 

still remained. The place seemed to open a long vista 
back through antiquity to the time of Homer. 

Again the image of Iphigenia appeared and began 
to flit through the ruins in company with Helen and 
other figures of the Trojan legend. What power was 
it that once sat on this hill ? How does it come that 
around this spot gathers so much song and story ? 

Not only does the movement against Troy start from 
golden IMycense with its King Agamemnon as leader, 
but also the re-action against Helen, shadowed forth 
strongly in Greek tragedy, the ethical protest of the 
Greek mind against the career of the beautiful woman, 
seems to be located on this spot. Of that protest Iphi- 
genia is the most important figure. Two opposing 
currents we see setting out from M3xen0e, yet both 
making one total movement. 

The image of Iphigenia began to dominate me at 
Mycense as completely as it had previously at Aulis ; 
she was greater than her father, and in certain ways 
she overtopped Helen even. I went with her to the 
citadel, chmbed the mountain with her to the temple 
of Artemis ; I followed in her company the brook 
plunging down through the gorge under the steep Avails 
of the city ; I plucked a flower in her garden and sat 
on her summer seat of rock in the shade which fell 
from an overhanging cliff. 

Under these circumstances there grew up in my 
mind the conception of an Iphigenia at Myceyioi. It had 
to be the prelude of the two Jjihigenias by Euripides. 
Evidently these plays pre-supposed something of the 
kind. Its three main facts became clear: it must 
bring together Iphigenia and Helen, Iphigenia and 
Paris, and then Helen and Paris. Thus all the ele- 
ments which afterwards unfolded, were laid in tlic 
primal legend — the unfallen, the fallen and the temp- 
ter. That primal legend could well have existed, in its 
germ at least, at or before the time of Homer. 

Accordingly, the story of Iphigenia at Afycenm, be- 
gan to spin itself out into many details, under that 
clear Greek sky with the \iew of mountain, plain and 

i;3 



]94 IPIIJGENIA 

sea ever in the eye. It l)ecarae to me a necessary 
stage in the development of the entire Trojan mythus. 
But there was no IjJhigenia at Mycence, ancient or 
modern, that I ever heard of ; so it had to be made. 
The myth-maker has still to-day his place, and has the 
right to weave his fabric anew. But I have no doubt 
that some old story-teller has already told this tale 
thousands of years ago, and I believe that some learned 
man will yet dig it out of the dust of an old lilsrary. 
Thus the three Iphigenias — at Mj'cense, at Aulis and at 
Tauris, began to shape themselves, in a crude chaotic 
way into a Trilogy, which still persisted in taking a 
dramatic form. 

Another fact soon rose into prominence. The total 
cycle of the legend would not be complete, unless 
Iphigenia were brought back to Hellas for some pur- 
pose which would make her return a necessity, and 
which would show her in a new career. The old 
legend simply restored her to her laud, and gave her a 
priesthood. But what is the inner ground of this re- 
turn, in Greece itself? Then what locality is the best 
setting for her activity? Athens was thought of, as 
hinted by Euripides in one passage, but this poet leaves 
her finally at Brauron, an insignificant place in Attica. 
In Argos, in Sparta, and in other lands of Greece, 
legend pointed out some temple in which Iphigenia was 
declared to have served after her return from Tauris. 
Athens, truly the intellectual light of Hellas, had 
strong claims upon the new priesthood, l)ut Delphi was 
manifestly the best place, as the recognized spiritual 
center of all Greece. 

It was in Athens, whither I went after my \isit at 
Mycense, that the whole scheme was sketched in its 
four parts, and each of these parts named from the 
place of the action. Four Iphigenias had arisen, or 
four phases of one great character in its spiritual pro- 
cess. But I could not then proceed with the work, it 
reached out beyond me. There was nothing to be 
done with it but to let it lie in the soul and unfold in 
its own time. I retraced my steps through Europe, 



IPHIGENIA. 195 

and came back to America, in the 3^ear 1879 ; still the 
legend kept fermenting within me, trying to shape 
itself without success. Several times in the following 
years I re-wrote the scheme with new additions and 
sketched some scenes, but I was not ready ; the work 
lay seething often, but formless. 

At last a change came. Certain ups and downs of 
life in the years 1881-2, made me see and feel in m}'- 
self what was wanted. Without something of an 
Il)higenia experience yoii cannot write an Iphigenia 
poem. You must be immolated by your own people, 
and you must consent to the sacrifice ; j'ou must leave 
home and go the way of the wanderer, who in exile 
must still keep the sacred lire burning in himself and 
in the world. Such is the great trial of life, be the 
stage small or large, be it in secret or in public. That 
inner ordeal by fire, the final test of character as well 
as of vocation, comes at last to every mortal. 

The career of Iphigenia now became not only a living 
thing, but a personal experience, which rapidly shaped 
itself not out of fancy but out of life. It could no 
longer make a classic poem, but a romantic one in the 
Christian spirit. Such had been the development of 
this legend in history, such too its development in an 
individual. Form, meter, and treatment rose into 
clearness. Goethe and Racine had dropped the ancient 
chorus, but retained the dramatic form. But the 
dramatic form was now dropped, and the rhj'med 
romantic epopee took its place. Thus the legend went 
back to Homer in its epical treatment, but came 
down to the modern world for the manner and the 
internal spirit. I ought to add that Lang's Helen of 
Troy furnished me with metrical hints of importance. 

In the fall of 1882, the first Canto was begun and 
completed. I n the course of the following winter it was 
read to various small literary circles in the West. The 
criticism was courteous and friendly, but through all 
the pleasant words I then felt, what I have often 
felt since, that the poem was going to mean to but few 
people what it meant to me. Within the next two 



196 IPHIGENIA. 

years the whole work was finished, and the four Iphi- 
geniasj yet one, stood before me at least, in word and 
deed. I had lived the poem inwardly, and even out- 
wardly to a certain extent. The various portions of 
the work were written in my wanderings to widely 
separated places : Avondale, Ohio ; Concord, Mass. ; 
New York City; Terre Haute, lud. ; Peak's Island, 
Maine. There can be no doubt that I had my reward 
for this fidelity to Iphigenia. 

Printed and given to the world, the work was no 
longer mine individually, but anybody's. Six years 
and more have gone by since its publication ; I now 
(summer of 1891) turn back to it almost as if it were 
another man's production. I have not only revised the 
text, but have again thought over the legend and read 
its most important literary manifestations. I can say 
that once more I have taken it up into my being and 
let it flow through my daily life. This second working- 
over, doubtless my last, of the Iphigenia legend I pro- 
pose to add as a small pendant in prose, to the story in 
verse. It is more than likely that some may be induced 
to read the prose who would skip the verse. The main 
object is to see the whole sweep of the legend, in its 
germinal meaning, in its growth, and in its literary 
manifestations. 

The Iphigenia Legend. 

The great fact which gives to the Iphigenia legend 
its deathless charm and interest, as well as its infinite 
suggestiveness, is its similarity to the story of Chi'ist. 
There is in both the innocent sacrifice for another's 
guilt ; the sinless one must give himself that the sinful 
one be redeemed and restored, and the act must be 
voluntary. An awful thought it is, not to be enter- 
tained in its reality without a shudder. There is, then, 
another law besides justice in the government of this 
universe. The human being, in his supreme grandeur, 
is immolated by his people, and he accepts his sacri- 
fice as a necessity of the world's order. 



IPIUGENIA. 197 

Yet the compensation must never be forgotten : by 
giving himself he saves himself. " He that loseth his 
hf e shall find it " is as true of Christ himself as of any 
of his followers. He had not been what he was, if he 
had not given himself. Christ himself was saved by 
his own sacrifice. Listen now to the heathen poet, 
Euripides. In the very pinch of agony the mother of 
Iphigenia cries out to her daughter who has resolved 
to give herself to the Goddess: "Having lost thee, 
my child" — "But thou shalt not lose me, I am 
saved," was the answer. (7p/i. at Aulis^l. 1440.) 
Through her death has come salvation. 

Another point of similarity which reaches deep into 
the divine order of things, is the missionary character 
common to both hves. " Go ye into all the world," 
is the strong command of the one, and the touchstone 
of his spirit. Iphigenia is carried to Tauris, the land 
of the Barbarians, where she serves as a priestess, and 
becomes the embodiment there, as well as the doctrine, 
of her own sacrifice. For the one, the limit of Jew 
and Gentile is broken down ; for the other the limit of 
Greek and Barbarian is transcended ; both are univer- 
sal, and seek the transformation of humanity into the 
image of what is universal. That is the best solution 
of the problem of evil which has 5''et been reached. 

Still the differences between the two lives are very 
marked and very important. In the one case the 
mediator is a woman, in the other case a man. The 
one belongs to the Occident, and has a subtle connec- 
tion with its spirit ; the other belongs to the Orient, 
and never loses his Hebrew features amid his univer- 
saUty. In the one case it is rather the secular, insti- 
tutional fife of man which is to be redeemed — Family 
and State, and we may add. Civilization. Helen must 
be restored to husband and country, to Europe. In 
the other case, it is the reUgious life of man which is 
to be saved, without much regard being paid to the 
things of Caesar ; man is mediated with God, is rescued 
from his own destructive thought and deed, and is 
harmonized with the divine order. In the end, this 



198 IPIIIGENIA. 

will embrace State and Family and Civilization. The 
Greek legend shows its secular side in being rather 
the source of art with its ^^si()n through the senses ; 
the Hebrew life shows its religious power by being the 
source of worship, with its contemplation of the Divine 
through the soul. Still both characters unite at last 
in the spirit ; secnlarit}^ and religiosity become one in 
humanity. Both stories reach down to a common ele- 
ment in all peoples and foster it, and appeal to it, for 
their power and inspiration. 

We may, therefore, affirm that of all the legends 
which the old Greek world has handed down to us, the 
legend of Iphigenia is the most completely prophetic, 
and, hence, has within it the possibility of the most 
complete unfolding into the modern world. 

It hints the later movement of Christianity in the 
spiritual conquest of Heathendom, and reaches with 
its alluring suggestiveness down into the present ; may 
we not say, even into the future? This significance of 
the legend is a development, not an analogy, not an 
allegory ; the legend unfolds with the race, and 
images ever afresh what the race has realized. Later 
poets new-model the old storj^ ; looking back on time 
from their vantage-ground, they see this unfolding 
and give to the legend the new meaning, which is, 
however, but a development of the old. 

There is another fact which belongs in this connec- 
tion ; the legend is the product of the people, not of 
an individual. Usually, it is at first in a fragmentarj' 
condition ; there are many shreds of the one great stor}'- 
floating about, as we can see in the case of the Trojan 
war. Every new recital, being oral and the direct in- 
spiration of the Muse, adds fresh touches ; thus the 
variations of the same tale among the people are often 
many and great. 

Still the legend is, at bottom, one, in all of its frag- 
ments. The unity is latent, in the idea ; the variety is 
manifest, in the appearance. As long as the legend 
remains in the mouths of the people, it continues to be 
fragmentary, yet perpetually growing, changing, de- 



IPHIOENIA: 199 

veloping. Two things are to be noted in the popular 
legend : outer fragmentariness, inner oneness. In this 
condition the poet takes it up ; he seizes the fragments 
and throws them into the furnace of his genius ; the 
slag falls away and the pure gold remains. It is the 
poet who brings out to light this inner unity of the 
legend, he organizes all the fragments into one central 
life ; in his hands they assume a form and are a totality. 
It is always difficult to grasp this unity, being such an 
elusive thing, an idea. Many people to-day can see 
only the fragments of the Iliad, even after the work of 
the poet who has unilied them. 

But, back of the poem, the unity of the legend, 
though implicit, is to be also seen. Just as the people 
is one, but composed of many fragments and divisions, 
each of which is nevertheless some shred of itself, so 
the legend, the product and image of the people'-s 
spirit, is one, though made up of many fragments. 
The Great Man, or Hero of the People is the one man 
who is the best summary of them all, being reduced to 
one personality. The great poem in like manner unites 
all the fragments of legend into one complete legend ; 
thus it is all of them and itself too. A true poem does 
not merely tell the stories over again, as they have been 
handed down ; it organizes them into a unity which is 
its very soul, while they are the body. 

Still, after the poem has been written, the legend 
does not cease growing ; it develops, as the people de- 
velops, as the world develops. Writing ought not to 
stop growth and cannot. The written word though 
much less pUable than the spoken word, is also in the 
process. Hence after a lapse of time the poem ynih. its 
legend must be re-written, and made to reflect the new 
time and the new spirit. The story of Helen will have 
to be re-told with every great revival of human spirit, 
mirroring the fresh outlook of the soul down the ages. 
Homer's story of Helen will not become superannuated, 
but reach a higher appreciation ; still the story will 
have to be re-written. So it has been in the past, so it 
will continue to be. The same is true of the storv of 



200 IPEIQENIA. 

Iphigenia, pevhaps even truer, for her storj^ has a 
deeper prophetic vein than that of Helen. 

It is now worth our while to take a short survey of 
the history of the Iphigeuia legend in its literarj- trans- 
formations. As already hinted, it has often been re- 
written ; it has woven its thread of light through all 
literature from the Greek downwards. A little tracing 
of that thread is helpful, it will show the story develop- 
ing with the race. 

History of the Iphigenia Legend. 

Homer does not mention the Iphigenia legend. In 
a single passage (^Iliad IX. 145) Agamemnon speaks 
of Iphianassa as one of his three daughters, who is at 
home, and whom Achilles can have in marriage, if he 
will only cease from his wrath. If this be the earlier 
Iphigenia, and such is doubtless the case, she has not 
been sacrificed at Aulis before the departure for Tro}-. 

Still from the silence of Homer, we have no right to 
infer that the legend had not begun to exist in his time, 
nor even that he did not know of it. The fact is that 
Homer knew many legends to which he makes merely 
a passing allusion. It is quite prol)able also that he 
knew many which he does not mention. There is no 
valid reason, therefore, for saying, as is usually done, 
that the Iphigenia legend is post-Homeric. Unques- 
tionably it unfolded into new shapes after the time of 
Homer ; but the likelihood is that it had begun unfold- 
ing before his time, as was the case with the story of 
Helen. All these legends existed ))efore, and after, 
and with Homer ; they changed, they grew, as living 
things must change and grow. 

In fact, the earliest form of the Iphigenia legend must 
have been a song in the epical fashion of Homer. 
The dramatic form, in which we first find this legend, 
is itself a growth out of the epic. In the Iphigenia 
dramas of Euripides, one may still trace certain primi- 
tive epical elements, such as tlie interference of Arte- 
mis and of Athena. 

Still one must see that the general thought of the 



IPRIQENIA. ' 201 

Iphigeuia legend is in Homer too, though not yet ex- 
plicit. All the Greeks before Troy had to offer them- 
selves in sacrifice, quitting home and countr}^ for war, 
that Helen be restored. Wives and children of the ab- 
sent soldiers had to suffer, even to perisli in the same 
cause. But the vivid concentration of this thought 
into a person, and a woman, too, is not the work of 
Homer, but is first found in iEschylus, though he may 
have derived it from the popular legend or from the 
later epics. The dramatic character now steps forth, 
hving, acting with a principle in the heart. 

^schylus has transmitted to us the name of Iphi- 
genia, and has spoken of her sacrifice at Aulis. She 
does not appear in person in any of his extant dramas ; 
still she has taken her place in the legend, and Cly- 
temnestra, in the Agamemnon, makes the sacrifice of 
her daughter the chief motive or pretext for slaying 
her own husband. 

The second great tragic poet of Hellas, Sophocles, 
also makes an allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigenia at 
AuUs in his Electra. He too is said to have written 
on the same subject a play which is lost. Both 
iEschylus and Sophocles apparently think that 
Iphigenia perished at Aulis, that she was not rescued 
by any divine interference of the Goddess Artemis. 
To be sure, from their silence we cannot infer that the 
legend was altogether silent upon this point in their 
day. It is, however, the third great tragic poet of 
Greece, Euripides, who has given the fullest elabora- 
tion of the Iphigenia legend. He has devoted two 
plays to the subject, which are still extant, and which 
have been the main source whence later dramatists 
have drawn their materials. 

The student of this legend will of necessity give to 
these plays of Euripides a careful examination. They 
are deeply suggestive though not always profoundly 
treated. On the whole we have to conclude that the 
legend is greater than the poet. These productions 
were effective dramas, doubtless ; they justify the 
title of Euripides as being " the most tragic of poets ;" 



202 IFHIGENIA. 

still in many respects they must have seemed external 
to the best Greek minds of the age of Socrates and 
Plato — that is, of the poet's own age. 

The Iphigeuia legend has an historical importance 
from the fact that it has mirrored itself in so many 
souls of succeeding epochs, especially among Latin 
peoples. In old Rome, Italy, France, it has had a 
numerous offspring. But the greatest child of the 
Iphigenia legend is of Teutonic origin. The poem of 
Goethe may be called the best embodiment of the 
spirit of the Iphigenia legend that has ever been 
caught and held in human speech, whether in ancient 
or modern times. Still the other efforts give some re- 
flection of the age and nation of their authors. Thus 
we have an image of Universal History cast into these 
manifold transformations of a single old legend. 

But we shall have to make a selection, and give a 
short account of the four which have shown themselves 
the most lasting and important, two of which belong to 
antiquity and two to our modern epoch. They are 
the Iphigenia at Aulis, as treated by Euripides and 
Racine, and the Iphigenia at Taxiris as treated by 
Euripides and Goethe. This will be sufficient to show 
the historic unfolding of the legend in the hands of its 
greatest expositors. 

Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides. — The argument of 
the play runs in this wise : The Greeks are detained 
at Aulis by stress of weather ; Calchas the sooth-sayer 
declares that they never will reach Troy till Iphigenia, 
the daughter of Agamemnon, be sacrificed to Artemis. 
This is the stern background of the action ; a priest's 
declaration of the will of deity, which here demands 
the slaughter of the innocent for the guilty. 

Agamemnon sends for his daughter under pretext of 
a marriage with Achilles, then repents ; Menelaus also 
urges the sacrifice at first, then he too repents, seeing 
the tears of his brother. Meantime Iphigenia arrives 
with her mother, Clytemnestra, to celebrate the mar- 
riage when the real situation is discovered. The 
mother and Achilles seek to thwart the sacrifice. 



IPEIGENIA. 203 

Particularly Clytemnestra enforces the moral aspect of 
such a deed: "A pretty custom, forsooth, that 
children must pay the price of a had woman," and 
"Menelaus obtain his Helen." Moreover Helen has 
a daughter, Hermione, and justice demands that this 
daughter be sacriticed instead of the daughter of the 
unoffending mother. "I, the faithful wife, shall be 
bereaved of my child, but she who has sinned, bearing 
her daughter under her care to Sparta, will be happy." 
Thus Clytemnestra strongly utters the moral protest 
against the claim of religion. 

In contrast to this opposition of the mother, Iphi- 
genia rises to her supreme height of character. After 
some hesitation, and even resistance, she yields and 
offers herself voluntarily. As her spirit grows clearer 
with the vision of her deed, she is not only ready, but 
is determined to die. "Hear me, mother, thinking 
upon what has entered my mind : I have determined 
to die, and this I would fain do gloriously, dismissing 
all ignoble thoughts." How far does her glance reach 
beyond that of her mother, who could only see in this 
sacrifice that Menelaus would recover his bad wife ! 
But Iphigenia knows that her deed is "for the woman 
hereafter;" she beholds it in its universal aspect; 
"barbarians will no longer carry off Greek women," 
after the destruction of Troy, which she brings about 
through her sacrifice. The Greeks will sail and avenge 
the wrong of Helen whom Paris carried away. She 
declares that life is not the highest good : "It is not 
right that I should be too fond of life, for thou, O 
mother, hast brought me forth for the common good of 
Greece, not for thyself only." 

There is, now and then, a hint of universal redemp- 
tion running through her utterances : "All these things 
I, d3ang, shall redeem and my memory, for that I have 
freed Greece, will be blessed." In her vision of the 
future, she beholds herself in the center of the great 
Trojan enterprise : " I give my body for Greece ; sac- 
rifice it and take Troy. For a long time to come this 
will be my monument ; this will be my children, my 



204 IPHIGENIA. 

marriage, ray glory," Not much beyond this point 
is it possible for the hnmau soul to climb. 

Yet Iphigenia mounts a step higher. Is this sacri- 
fice really death ? The mother speaks to her : ' ' Hav- 
ing lost thee m}' child " — " But thou shalt not lose 
me, I am saved." Sacrifice, then, is not death, but 
life. Bad would it be for her, if she did not offer her- 
self; then she v/ere truly dead, buried in a living 
tomb of flesh. Moreover the mother too will not fail 
of the blessing : " Thou wilt be glorious, as far as I am 
concerned." 

Accordingly, there are to be no signs of mourning 
for her death ; no tears, no cropping of the locks, no 
wearing of dark garments. For does she not really 
attain true life b}^ her act ? Finally she asks to be led 
forth, not as a victim but as a conqueress: "Raise 
the p.iean, let the joyful song go forth to the Greeks ; 
conduct me hence, the conqueror of the cities of Troy 
and of the Phrygians." Then the parting word: 
"Farewell, beloved light." 

There can be no doubt that this character of 
Iphigenia is conceived and expressed by the poet 
in the supreme height of the spirit. She becomes 
truly inspired in her sacrifice, a seeress. She fore- 
shadows much that is to be unfolded afterwards, she 
has the prophetic character. Hers is that wonderful 
union of vision and the deed, which produces the 
greatest figures of history and poetry. In this respect 
no poet after Euripides has surpassed him, and in his 
other play on Iphigenia he has by no means equaled 
himself, as he shines forth here. 

There is another trait of Iphigenia, which is also 
found in the present drama : it is the nun-like element 
in her character, which looks away from domestic life 
to some universal end. She says, speaking of her 
sacrifice: " this will be my marriage, my children, my 
glory." The woman thus surrenders her life in the 
Family, for a purpose which she deems above the 
Family. This trait, already brought out by Euripides, 



IPHIGENIA. 205 

and inherent in the story, will be kept and intensified 
as the legend develops m the ages afterwards. 

From a purely dramatic point of -siew, the play must 
be called effective. It has not only unity, but a strong 
vital center of action, namely the sacrifice, which is 
announced at the beginning and continues the main 
thing to the end. All the characters stand in some re- 
lation to this deed, mainly in an attitude of protest 
and horror. Agamemnon at first consents to it, then 
repents, and finally yields to what he deems a divine 
necessity. Menelaus is urgent at the start, then he, 
too, changes. The old messenger, Achilles, Cl}'tem- 
nestra, all stand in persistent hostility to this terrible 
demand for a human life. 

Two rise up on the other side, hard as granite and 
high as heaven — the Goddess and the Priest. There 
is no reason given in this play for the dire command of 
the deity, though the poet elsewhere has hinted the 
ground of divine wrath. Thus the action shows the 
strong protest of humanity against the external author- 
ity of religion. Euripides feels and portrays the con- 
flict of the new spirit with the old creed which has 
become a horrible superstition. 

Still, in the end, the Goddess rescues the maiden 
who has so nobly offered herself in sacrifice, and the 
audience is, to a certain extent, reconciled with the 
divine order. Behind this gross faljric of superstition 
there is a power that saves. Instead of the human 
being, a stag lies bleeding on the altar, and Iphigenia 
has disappeared. This rescue is purely external in the 
way in which it is brought about, still we connect it 
with the voluntary deed of the maiden, who has really 
saved herself by her sacrifice. 

Deeper than the protest of the ethical consciousness 
against a bloody religious rite is the reconciliation with 
religion in this play. Deity saves through self-sacri- 
fice — that is the law which we can read here. It is 
not a tragedy exactly, it is a tragedy mediated in the 
deepest manner, and a woman is the grand mediatorial 
character. It touches at this point a whole series of 



206 IPIIIGENIA. 

Shakespeare's plays usually classed as comedies, but 
by no means mirth provoking. Nay, it hints the Mar- 
garet who is saved in her self-surrender and death at 
the end of the first part of Faust. 

So we must give Euripides credit for his character of 
Iphigenia in the latter part of this play. One thinks 
that he must have obtained his inspiration for such a 
high strain from -(Eschylus, who also treated this por- 
tion of the Iphigenia legend in a lost drama. Still 
the command of the Goddess at the beginning and at 
the end of the play is external and capricious ; we 
cannot help feeling that the legend has something in it 
greater than the present dramatic presentation of it 
by Euripides. Before his time, some spirit, be it that 
of the people, or that of a ])oet, or both together, had 
drawn the vast outlines of the legend, which the later 
dramatist was not able to fill. 

Iphigenia at Aulis by Racine. — The French poet, in 
his drama, also finds a substitute for Iphigenia at the 
altar; not the stag, but another woman. That is, 
Iphigenia is not sacrificed, she escapes by a contriv- 
ance of the dramatist. Thus she is no longer Iphige- 
nia, the soul of her character is gone. The deep 
reconciliation, which comes through the sacrifice, is 
totally lost; she cannot now be saved through her 
grand self-immolation. The Christian poet falls infin- 
itely behind the Heathen poet just in the spirit of 
Christianity. 

Racine retains the same rigid background of a re- 
ligious injunction which we find in Euripides. The com- 
mand of the Goddess, enforced by the priest, is given 
to Agamemnon, who is to obey without question, 
though he kuoAvs no ground for such a terrible man- 
date. A passage declares that Calchas now is com- 
mander, a priest has usurped the authority of the King. 
One can feel here an allusion to France, possibly the 
unconscious background it is to Louis the Fourteenth 
and priestly domination. 

But in this hard outer setting of a religious rite 
Racine spins a love story, Achilles being the lover of 



IPHIGENIA. 207 

Iphigenia. In order to make the plot more compli- 
cated, there is introduced another woman, a character 
unknown to Euripides. This new woman loves 
Achilles; Eriphile is her name, and the two women 
have their mutual jealousies, their secret cabals, and 
also their open quarrel over their lover. Such has Ijc- 
come our Greek nun in the hands of that good French- 
man, Racine, who, it is said, could never see a novice 
taking the veil without weeping. The details of the 
Parisian love intrigue have a strange color when inter- 
woven into the Greek fable. 

In the last pinch of danger the heroic Achilles with 
true gallantr)^ resolves to rescue his lady-love from the 
sacrificial altar by violence. This brings about the 
solution. Eriphile, the hateful rival is really meant by 
the Goddess, she being the daughter of Helen by 
Theseus, and having been brought up in Lesbos, from 
which island she has been taken captive in a maraud- 
ing expedition of the Greeks. The confusion all arose 
from the fact that she went under the name of Iphige- 
nia ; hence the Goddess meant one person, while the 
Greeks thought she meant another. Calchas at the end 
of the play corrects the mistake, which was his own, 
and poor Eriphile, whom we are to hate, has to bleed. 
So Racine has discovered a su])stitute for Iphigenia, 
and he takes a good deal of credit to himself, in the 
preface of his play, for his discovery. He has found 
in classic authors (Stesichorus and Pausanias) author- 
ity for stating that it was Iphigenia, the daughter of 
Helen, who Avas sacrificed at Auhs. He has entirely 
lost sight of the sacrifice of the good for the bad, 
whereby not only the bad is restored but even the good 
is saved. But Eriphile too is innocent, though she bo 
tlie daughter of the sinful Helen, and though the poet 
tries to make her hateful, so that it is hard to see what 
Racine, from his own point of view, has gained. By 
his way of saving, Iphigenia is certainly destroyed. 
It is true that she personally offers herself, when there 
is no need, for she is not taken. 

Eriphile at the final moment, kills herself in a frenzy 



208 IPHIGENIA. 

of wrathful dcCiancc ; she is not slain by the priest, 
nor does the Goddess interfere on her behalf. Thus 
Racine thinks that he has gotten rid of an incredible 
Ijiece of superstition. The godlike element in his 
work he has indeed gotten rid of. Now there is no 
reconciliation with the command of the Goddess ; it is 
left a cruel arbitrary act of the deity Avithout any sav- 
ing power. 

The play of Racine, to the taste of the present time 
among English-speaking and German-speaking peoples, 
turns to an unconscious parody of the Classic. How 
Frenchy it all is, we cry out, particularly at the love in- 
trigue. Still there is a side on which he was right in 
principle ; it is the manner of his execution to which we 
cannot assent. He had the right to put his own time 
into the legend. But he has not unfolded either the 
legend or the character of Iphigenia into its true 
modern life. He has also thrown into his play some- 
thing which is discordant with the old story. In gene- 
ral the charge against him, is, that he has not 
harmonized us with the Gods, but left us in a far 
deeper discord with the divine order than the Heathen 
poet did. He has solved the sacrifice of Iphigenia by 
putting in her place a substitute, and an innocent 
one at that. Whereat we cry out still, why sacrifice this 
guiltless being? We refuse to accept the substitute, 
and the Goddess does not save her ; thus weare drop- 
ped at the end into utter discord. 

It is clear that Racine in his desire to save " that 
amiable and virtuous princess" has lost her soul. For 
Iphigenia is mediated through her own sacrifice, not 
through that of a substitute. Thus she becomes an 
exemplar, since every human being is to bear manfully 
his burden and not to put it upon another. In sinte 
of himself Racine turns oiu' sympathy toward the poor 
outcast Eriphile, who is the child of adverse fate, with- 
out any fault of her own. 

Whatever be the exceptions which are now taken to 
the i)lay of Racine, it has met in times past with ex- 
traordinary favor. Voltaire has called it the tragedy 



IPHIQENIA. 209 

of all ages and of all nations, which is as near to i)cr- 
fection as human effort can be. Undoubtedly it has 
dramatic movement; it has a skillful evolution of a 
plot; it has minor situations which are effective; it 
has striking and even subtle reflections. But the 
grand dramatic, or rather, poetic problem of all times 
and of all peoples, the reconcihation of man with tlie 
divine order of the world, is not illuminated but dark- 
ened by the play ; the providential plan of the deity 
stands above the poor mortal, like an iron heaven, which 
may fall at any moment and crush him. Was not this 
the French consciousness of the time of Louis the 
Fourteenth? Arbitrary power with absolute submis- 
sion of the individual is the supreme law both in 
church and state. So Racine mirrored his own period, 
which for us is happily past, and which in itself was 
but a fleeting and not an eternal phase of the 
ages. 

What we now demand is a true unfolding of the 
legend into modern life, yet with its universal thought 
of reconciliation. First of all, we must have some 
valid reason for that command of the Goddess, by 
which the father is to sacrifice the daughter. Aga- 
memnon must have done some guilty act, which is thus 
to be expiated. The old legend gave several grounds, 
all of them insufficient, it is true, for the wrath of 
Artemis, the Goddess of purity, against the leader of 
the Greeks. Even the deity must not be arbitrary, 
but rational, and the divine command is not to be ex- 
ternal merel^^but transparent to reason. Thus dramatic 
art is truly a guide and an illumination. 

In Iphigenia, we are to see that the sacrifice makes 
her character, and the deed is her completion. To 
substitute another person is really her death. Even 
the rescue by the Goddess is not to be dispensed with, 
but is to be made internal likewise, and thus trans- 
figured into a spiritual act of liberty. The poet must 
show that Iphigenia just through her sacrifice being 
voluntary, is saved in the divine sense. If she had not 
given her life willingly, then she had found no salva- 

14 



210 inilGENIA. 

tion. And that life must be taken, else the offering 
has no necessity. 

Calchas, too, must be transformed. He is to V)c 
not the mere mouth-piece of divine tyranny and 
cruelty ; he must be the interpreter of the God, and 
explain unto men the divine oracles. A true priest is 
also a seer. In like manner all the other characters, 
while retaining their personal traits, are to be illumi- 
nated from the great central light. Achilles, as hero 
and as lover, is to see what sacrifice means, especially 
the sacrifice of Iphigenia. So all the host, when it 
sets sail, is to feel her spirit in itself, that spirit of 
sacrifice which the Trojan war demanded of every 
true Greek. He too, though innocent, is to meet 
death that the guilty one be restored. 

I may have done scant justice to this play of Racine, 
but after a repeated reading of it I feel the alien ele- 
ment still. Many parallels have been drawn between 
the French and the Greek poet in their treatment of 
the present theme. A French writer states that before 
the time of La Harpe, these parallels gave the superi- 
ority to Racine ; but that recently, say during the last 
hundred years, Euripides has had the preference. If 
this stateiueut be true, French criticism no longer sup- 
ports the lofty claim made for this play by Voltaire. 

Tlie Iphigenia at Taiiris by Euripides. — The follow- 
ing short abstract touches the main incidents : Iphi- 
genia, who is now far away from Greece at 
Tauris, on the shores of the Black Sea, and is 
priestess there in the temple of Artemis, has had a 
dream which she interprets as indicating the death 
of her brother Orestes, to whom she will, accord- 
ingly, pay funeral rites. In the mean time, Orestes 
with his friend Pylades has reached the coast of 
Tauris, in obedience to an oracle of Apollo, who 
has told him to bring back the sacred image of his 
sister, which fell from heaven, to the land of the 
Athenians, when he (Orestes) would be free of the 
pursuit of the Furies. The two strangers are brought 
into the presence of Iphigenia for sacrifice, as it is 



irniGENIA. 211 

the custom of the Taurians to immoUitc all strang- 
ers to their Goddess. After some conversation, and 
chiefly by means of a letter, Iphigcnia and Orestes, 
sister and brother, come to know each other, and we 
have the scene of the recognition. Then follows the 
plan of escape for all three, as Iphigenia also longs to 
return to Hellas. She rejects the advice to kill the 
King, Thoas, but is ready to deceive him by using 
his superstitious faith. All three escape to the sea- 
coast with the image, and actually embark, when the 
stratagem is discovered, and is told to Thoas by a 
messenger. The King is on hand to seize them, when 
the ship is driven back to the shore by winds and cur- 
rents. When all seems lost, Minerva appears, and 
commands Thoas to let the fugitives depart in peace 
for their own laud and take with them the sacred im- 
age, which is to have a special temple at Attica, and 
Iphigenia is to be a priestess at Brauron in the land of 
"God-built Athens." 

Dramatic life there is in this piece of Euripides and 
continuous movement. It has two leading points 
which will always strongly engage the interest of an 
audience. These are the recognition and the flight. 
The sister, as every spectator sees, is about to sacrifice 
unwittingly her own brother ; will she find out who he 
is ? This interest the poet has skillfully used and in- 
tensified, up to the point of recognition. The next 
matter is the escape of the three Greeks, and the suc- 
cess of the stratagem. This part is not so well handled 
as the previous one, still the interest does not droop. 
The least happy portion of the drama is the last, in 
Avhich Minerva appears ; this Deus ex machina seems 
imnecessary, as the fugitives had already escaped ; still 
they are brought back, that the Goddess might 
appear. 

Compared with Ipliigenia at Axdis of the same 
author, this drama is a falling off. It has not the same 
unity in thought and construction. But a])ove all, the 
character of Iphigenia is not maintained at the same 
height. Here she has not the spirit of sacrifice which 



212 inilGENIA. 

wc beheld gleaming forth from her look and utterance 
there ; still less does she show the spirit of her mission. 
She has done little to tame and humanize the wild bar- 
barians ; she still sacrifices human beings to the 
Goddess, according to the old cruel customs of 
savages ; she shows many indications of spite and 
revenge against her father and others who had a share 
in the doings at Aulis. She sighs, in the narrow spirit 
of the Greek, to quit the barbarous land for Athens, 
"a happy city." This is not the Iphigenia whom 
we beheld in the glory of self-sacrifice at Aulis. If the 
l)resent play was written as a continuation of the 
Iphigenia at Ardis, Euripides had lost, not so much his 
dramatic, as his spiritual power, of which he possesses 
at times a considerable spark, in spite of his skeptical 
tendencies. 

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the story of the 
drama is infinitely suggestive. Here again we feel that 
the legend which is the creation of the people is far 
greater and deeper than its poet. The Greek woman, 
going as priestess to barbaric lands, is verily a 
prophetic figure, and the prophecy is still being ful- 
filled. She is the hint of the future illumination, she is 
the germ of the teacher, missionary, bearer of light to 
the dark places of the world. But Euripides did not 
behold her and portray her in this transfigured shape, 
though it lay in the legend, that half-articulate voice of 
the people, which the poet is to endow with a complete 
and beautiful utterance. Other points in the drama 
are profoundly suggestive of the time that Avas then 
coming and still has not wholly arrived. Iphigenia 
finds that the stranger whom she is about to hand over 
to death is her brother ; a wonderful experience lies iu 
that — nothing less than that every stranger may be 
her brother, and she could catch from it a glimpse of 
universal brotherhood. Even the interference of 
Minerva, Goddess of "Wisdom, who is to speak her 
word to the barbarian Thoas with effect, has its sug- 
gestion, though here the divinity is purely external in 
her authority. That which Thoas now does through 



IPHIQENIA. 213 

terror, will yet be clone through conviction, and the 
Goddess will be inside the King as well as outside. 

In the present drama, accordingly, Euripides shows 
himself a skillful playwright, but not the far-glancing 
seer with his world-bearing words. Yet the legend 
seems to be calling for the poet w^ho is also the seer. 
Many, in the course of time, have answered the call 
and have re-writteu this Iphirjenia at Tauris. Of these 
answers, ancient and modern, none are at present 
heard by men with any distinctness, if we make one ex- 
ception. Goethe, our last supreme poet, has told again 
the tale of Iphigenia at Tauris in dramatic form, and 
we may now make a short study of the legend as he 
has unfolded it. 

Iphigenia at Tauris by Goethe. — The thought of this 
poem and the suggestion of it la}^ in the Spirit of the 
Time (in the Zeitgeist) as well as in the individual poet. 
In Goethe's bo3'hood (1757) a French Iphigenia at 
Tauris by Guymond de la Touche made an extraordi- 
nary sensation at Paris, the echo of which went through 
Germany. In 1779, the same year in which Goethe's 
first prose sketch was made, a musical 7;;7ii^e/ua at Tauris 
rang through Europe, in Gluck's glorious opera of this 
name. Even Racine had made a plan of an Iphi- 
genia at Tauris, first pul)lislied in 1747, in which the 
son of Thoas is the lover of Iphigenia, who was res- 
cued at Aulis and borne to Tauris by pirates, and not 
by the Goddess Artemis. Thus Racine shows at the 
start the love intrigue and the abolition of the divine 
element. There was a struggle in the century to em- 
body this great legend ; Goethe, the poet of the age, 
felt the struggle, and wrought at the task for many 
years till he succeeded. But he, with the others, leans 
upon the old Greek, Euripides, and the main study 
is to trace the evolution of the ancient poem into the 
modern. 

The first fact that comes up before the mind in this 
comparative view is that Goethe's Iphigenia at Tauris 
shows itself to be, in its external features, quite the 
same as that of Euripides. The setting is the same, 



214 IPHiaENIA. 

both actions are placed at Tauris in a barbarous land. 
Then many incidents are common to the two dramas : 
the priesthood of the Greek woman, the arrival of her 
brother Orestes pursued by the Furies, the recognition, 
the scheme to escape to Hellas, the final departure. 
Then too, the characters haA'e the same names for the 
most part, and the same external outlines in the two 
dramas. 

Such is the similarity ; now for the difference. In 
spirit two works could not be more unlike. Euripides 
is narrowly Greek, Goethe is universal. In the hands 
of the German poet, the Hellenic features are trans- 
muted into those of humanity. Hellenism there is in 
Goethe's poem, but not that Hellenism which contemns 
the Barbarian with a provisional exclusiveness. The 
Hellenism of Goethe is that which has taken up and 
transformed the barbarous world. This is the wonder- 
ful poetic alchemy ; Euripides is not equal to his 
legend ; Goethe unfolds it into the modern age. 
Thus, while it is old, it is also new. This poetic trans- 
figuration we shall try to trace in a few details. 

In the first place, Tauris is no longer a particular 
spot merely: it means all Barbary, or the modern 
world, which Greek culture has helped to civilize. 
The poet calls himself a Barbarian in the Roman 
Elegies ; he is now celebrating what the Hellenic 
spirit has done for him and for his race. Tauris, from 
the bleak inhospitable locality in the Nortli, such as 
we find it in Euripides, is transfigured into a world. 

In the second place the incidents become radiant 
with new meaning. The stay of Iphigenia is now not 
merely a separation, a banishment from home, but is 
a priestly work. She has tamed the savages, she has 
done away with human sacrifices. She has trans- 
formed the king and peojile. Orestes, too, is to 
receive spirtual help from her. The stealing of the 
image of Diana is changed into a taking of the priestess 
home, for she is the true image which is to be restored 
to Greece. In all these matters we behold a rich 
inner life develop out of what seemed only external 



IPHIGENIA. 215 

events. "We also see an old legend with its dim in- 
stincts and suggestions unfold into the clear trans- 
parent fullness of time. The i)oem must be perused 
with this illumination of the inner light else it is dark 
indeed. 

In the third place, the characters show the same 
transfigured spirit within. Iphigenia wishes to return 
home it is true, but this is to be after her work is done, 
after her second great sacrifice has been made. How 
different from the IjDhigenia of Euripides, as he por- 
tra^'s her at Tauris ! In Goethe, she will not resort to 
deception, she abandons Greek lying and cunning, and 
tells all to Thoas. She is truly a priestly, consecrated 
character. Thoas, the King, has been also trans- 
formed ; then he is to master his love. This love of 
the King for the pi'iestess is an addition of Goethe's, 
though it is said to be found in an old French drama 
on the same subject, and may have been suggested by 
Racine's sketch. Orestes, too, is transformed, he 
finds that it is not the outer image of the Goddess which 
he must take away, but Iphigenia herself. That is the 
cure of his madness. 

From many points of view Goethe's poem is worth}' 
of careful study. It shows the true treatment of a 
great legend, making it unfold with time into all tliat 
time has unfolded. Some have called it a pure specimen 
of the antique, others have declared it to be a modern 
poem with an ancient name. It is really both Greek and 
Teutonic, old and new, an image of the spirit clothing 
itself in classic and romantic art. If it were a mere 
imitation or reproduction of a Greek drama, its value 
would be small. Again it is said to lack dramatic life. 
It is doubtless somewhat deficient in outer incident, 
and its movement on the surface seems too trampiil ; 
hni its wealth of inner experience is not easily ex- 
hausted, and a continued activity of the spirit it has. 
It is more a drama of the soul than of incident. We 
may fairly say, it is the best embodiment of the Ii)hi- 
ijenia leyjend. 

Very naturally such a production was not under- 



210 IPJIIGENIA. 

stood in its own time. It had to create its readers, 
yes, to develop them with the 5'ears. It retained tlie 
dramatic form, yet its relation to the stage was a matter 
of doubt. Three hours of the theater cannot report a 
development, which has required three thousand years. 
The poem demands time, not for the scene to shift, 
but for the soul to change. His friends in Italy, in 
which classic land he gave to it the final form, and his 
friends in Weimar, had not, as he very mildly hints, 
any just appreciation of the work. It was clearly a 
failure at the start. Fifteen 3'ears after its appearance, 
it was acted for the first time, 3'et with a good many 
modifications, which still indicated a lack of apprecia- 
tion. 

Thus Goethe's poem reflects a long chapter of the 
world's history. But it also reflects a chapter of the 
poet's own history. The development of the world 
and the development of the world's poet mirror each 
other. The poem was not of sudden conception and 
execution ; it was itself a growth, a development of ten 
or a dozen years. He first wrote it down in 1779, 
though he had already been carrying it around with 
himself and working it over in his mind for several 
years. This first shape was in prose. He transformed 
it into meter in Italy. The change corresponds to a 
great change in the i)oet himself. The wild period of 
Storm and Stress passes into the serene classicism of 
the Italian period. Goethe hiiuself was tamed by his 
long stay with Iphigenia ; the modern Barl)arian lecords 
his own transformation. Even before this final recon- 
struction in Italy, the poem had several re-raodelings, 
no less than five according to Duentzer. 

Still the return of Iphigenia to Greece must be given 
a more developed form than even Goethe has given it. 
She must be shown doing her work in her own country 
as she has done it in Barbary, for she has an impor- 
tant career still at home. Thoas, too. Barbarian trans- 
formed, must not merely permit her to go back in a 
passive sort of wa}^ ; he must send her back, must 
actively restore her to her native land ; nay, he must 



IPHIGENIA. 217 

go himself to Greece, with ai-ms in hand if necessary. 
That is, the actual restoration of Iphigenia to Hellas is 
the work of the Barbarian. 

When Goethe wrote his Ipliigenia at Tanris, time 
had not yet prepared this content for his poem ; the 
legend of the ages had not yet developed into the actual 
restoration of Iphigenia to Hellas through the Barbar- 
ian. But in the hundred years since the first publica- 
tion of his poem, the eternal germ lying in that old 
storj'^ has marvelously unfolded anew, so that the whole 
legend must be re-written. The Greek Kevolution, 
which took place in Goethe's old age, more than thirty 
years after the apjjearance of his poem, was a grand 
new act in the world-drama of Iphigenia ; the nations 
of Europe, Barbarians to the old Greeks, called Hel- 
las back to life and freedom. And we must under- 
stand that it was not Christian Greece which roused 
the sympathy and strength of Europe (America too 
had a hand in the matter) but it was Heathen Greece, 
with its memories, with the feeling of gratitude for its 
culture. Other Christian peoples were quietly left 
imder the Turkish yoke by Christian Europe, but 
Greece was set free. 

One step further we may move at the present date. 
The Greek restoration through the Barbarians, has 
been going on in my own time. When I was in 
Greece a dozen years ago, there was no free Thessaly. 
Now, through the treaty of Berlin, the Greek limit 
has been extended northward into tlie region of the 
ancient home of the Hellenic Gods, Mount Olympus. 
After centuries of captivit}^ Greece is gradually get- 
ting her own, by the aid of the European Powers ; res- 
toration is indeed the great fact of her present liistory, 
and the watchword of her choicest spirits. And it 
is again that Barbarian, Thoas, who has not }norely 
stood by and let Iphigenia restore herself, but who has 
helped her in the most decisive wa}', if not witJi arms 
in hand this time, at least with gleaming ba^'onets iu 
the backffi-ouud. 



218 IPHIGENIA. 



Development of Characters. 

It has already been indicated that the characters ot 
the legend develop as well as the story itself, and take 
new spiritual attributes as these unfold in the ages. 
Not only the characters of the legend, but also those 
of the great works of art, and for that matter those 
of real life, are not of to-day nor of 5'esterday merely ; 
they are the apparent gift of the moment of time in 
which they come to light, but in a deeper sense they 
are the products of all time, and have a spiritual 
lineage which runs back through the past, often 
traceable to the twilight of the race. Thus it is with 
the Iphigenia legend, its personages have had many 
literary incarnations, which can be followed historically, 
if not to their beginning in time, at least to their be- 
ginning in letters. We shall now give a little attention 
to its leading characters separately, and study each of 
them in its histoi-ic unfolding. Hitherto we have seen 
how the legend as a whole develops ; at present we 
shall consider the history of its individuals, tracing it 
down from Homer to our own time, and even taking a . 
glance into the future. The three main personages 
only will be considered — Iphigenia, Orestes, Thoas. 
The other characters, compared to these, are incidental 
and may be omitted. 

Iphigenia. (1.) In Homer, the daughter of Aga- 
memnon, Iphianassa, is not sacrificed at Aulis, but is 
at home during the Trojan War. Still there is a great 
sacrifice, both of Greek men and Greek women, tak- 
ing place through that war ; thus the germinal thought 
of the character lies already in Homer. 

(2. ) In iEschylus and Sophocles, Iphigenia appeal's, 
and is the first grand sacrifice, imaging all others. But 
she is an involuntary one, it would seem, and is not 
and cannot be rescued by the Goddess at Aulis. 

(3.) In Euripides, she is not only a sacrifice, but 
rises to being a voluntary one, through her own char- 
acter. A great and noble addition is this trait ; then 
she is rescued by the Goddess, and taken to Bar- 



IPHIGENIA. 219 

bary. But she is not seen to have any special mission 
there among the Barbarians. 

(4.) In Goethe, she has the missionary spirit, she 
humanizes Barbary. She also exercises a healing in- 
fluence over her brother, Orestes, who is pursued by 
the Furies. 

(5.) In the future unfolding of the legend, the re- 
turn of Iphigenia to Hellas must be fully set forth. 
Both Euripides and Goethe have this return, but they 
motive it on her part by a subjective longing to get 
back home, a kind of nostalgia. This is well enough 
as far as it goes ; but we must also be shown that she 
has a mission in Greece too, that she is to save it as she 
has saved Barbary. Thus her return has a real ob- 
jective ground, and is not simply her desire or caprice 
or home-sickness. Otherwise it were the higlier thing 
to stay at Tauris and continue her work. It is true 
that Goethe has several hints which look in this direc- 
tion, but they are not developed. One thinks that his 
Iphigenia at Delphi, had he ever written it, would have 
unfolded on these lines. 

Orestes. (1.) In Homer, Orestes is simply mentioned 
as the son of Agamemnon, a boy at home, undevel- 
oped. The Furies are also noticed in Homer, but in 
no connection with Orestes ; they too are undeveloped. 

(2. ) In yEschylus, the next great poet, both Orestes 
and the Furies are developed with unsurpassed power, 
in the grand dramatic Trilogy, called the Oresteia, 
after the name of the hero. Orestes slays his mother 
who has slain his father, and he is pursued by the Furies 
for the deed. Then he is delivered by a decision of 
the court of Areiopagus at Athens, in which tlie God- 
dess Pallas Athena has the casting vote. Great ami 
true and impressive is this solution, whereby institu- 
tional authority puts an end to private vengeance, or 
the need of it, on the one hand, and, on the other, puts 
an end to the pursuit of the Furies. There can be no 
doubt that iEschylus has written, in his Oresteia, one 
of the great world-poems, which embodies not merely 
poetry and characters, but an epochal moment of 



220 IPIIIGENIA. 

Time, a turning-point in Aiyan ci^ilization. Still 
-^schylus springs directly from Homer, is a Greek un- 
folding of the lirst Greek poet. Thus he comes after 
Homer both in time and in magnitude. 

In Sophocles also we find an Orestes portrayed in 
the drama called Electra, which sliows changes from 
-/Eschylus, especially in the dramatic handling of the 
story, but there is no noteworthy development in the 
spirit of the legend. 

(3.) In Euripides, Orestes again appears, still pur- 
sued by the Furies, a part of whom refused to acquiesce 
in the decision of the Areiopagus. Thus P^uripides 
notices the solution of iEsch^'lus, but does not fully ac- 
cept it. That is, though the outer law may set free, the 
inner sense of guilt remains, and some of the Furies 
still hunt the man of sin. Therefore a new process of 
purification is laid upon Orestes by the oracle of Apollo : 
he must bring back the sacred image of the sister from 
Tauris to Greece. Deeply hiutful is this command of 
the Oracle ; but Euripides, in his Ipliigenia at Tauris, 
is purely external in his treatment of the legend and 
loses the soul of the whole story ; he makes no inner 
connection between this act of bringing back the sacred 
image, and the diseased spirit of the man who is there- 
by to be healed. 

(4. ) In Goethe also Orestes is pursued by the Furies, 
and comes into the presence of his sister, who has the 
power of soothing their attack. But the grand contri- 
bution of Goethe to the legend at this point is, that the 
external necessity of bringing off the sacred image falls 
away ; the sacred image which is to be restored to 
Greece is the sister herself, with her twenty years of 
sacrifice, and not that rude Taurian block of wood. 
Thus the Teutonic poet, in a way not only beautiful 
but soul-illuminating, internalizes and truly iuterj^rets 
Euripides, or rather unfolds the old legend into its 
true significance. The ugly theft of the outer 
semblance of the Goddess from the Barbarians is 
wholly done away with, and banished forever from the 
legend, and the modern seer with impressive strength 



IPHIGENIA. 221 

and sweetness l)rings to light a, great and deeply puri- 
f^ing conception, wliich reaches up and touches the 
heart of universal religion. 

(5.) Yet beyond Goethe we must go. We must un- 
fold into completeness what Orestes brought back in 
his sister, of what spiritual disease she cures him, but 
above all, in what way she is to be helpful to her coun- 
try, and to cure it too. Orestes is not merely himself 
but also Greece, which is harassed by the Furies and 
Fates. But Iphigenia, through her life, has gotten rid 
of the limit of Barbary ; this was a real Fate to ancient 
Greece, which was destined to perish, at least as a na- 
tion, through the old Barbarians. She has also gotten 
rid of the Furies, the vengeance wliich ever begets 
vengeance, not simply in an external sense, but chrefly 
in the bosom of the man who cherishes it. Thus there 
is to be a priestly service of Iphigenia at Delphi, the 
spiritual center of the Hellenic world. 

Thoas. (1.) In Homer, we may note the first glim- 
mer of the distinction between Greeks and Barbarians, 
the latter being marked off in one passage by their 
manner of speech. Still in this case it may have been 
only one of the ruder Greek dialects. Very significant 
is the fact that the earliest and greatest poet of the 
Greeks hardly reveals that limit and prejudice of race, 
which at last became hardened into Fate, into their 
very destiny. Hence there can be no Thoas in Homer. 

(2.) In^schylus and Sophocles, the distinction be- 
tween Greek and Barbarian has become developed ; in 
fact, it is firmly fixed in the Greek national charac- 
ter, a limit which it will take ages to overcome, and 
indeed a reconstruction of the world. It is the dark 
demonic element which grew out of the struggle for 
Greek freedom against the Persian, ^sch^^us and 
Sophocles have no Iphigenia at Tauris, could not well 
have in their time, and hence they have no Thoas, the 
representative of the Barbarians. Still they have the 
distinction. 

(3.) In Euripides, Thoas first appears, the barbar- 
ous king of Barbarians, the embodiment of that great 



222 IPHIGENIA. 

outlying world to the North of Greece, not to the 
P^ast as in yli^schylus. Thoas is portrayed by Euri- 
pides, as cruel, superstitious, ignorant, in line as the 
contrast to the beautiful and cultured Greek of Athens. 
But it is a wonderful step in the growth of the legend 
to see Barbar}^ incarnated in one person. 

(4.) In Goethe, Thoas has been humanized by the 
long stay of the Greek priestess. Thus he stands for 
the many ages of development which lie between the 
Hellenic and Teutonic poet, the latter of whom is 
now the Barbarian. Still Thoas has the danger of re- 
lapsing into savagery through disappointed love. But 
even this last sparkle of desire for the selfish pos- 
session of what is spiritual, is suppressed though not ex- 
tinguished ; his individual love is subdued if not 
reconciled by the priestess, and he permits her to re- 
turn home in peace. Somewhat sullen perhaps, cer- 
tainly cold and passive is that last word of his to the 
parting Iphigenia: " Farewell." 

(5.) This character can be developed much beyond 
what we find in Goethe ; indeed time has brought out 
such a development, as before said, since the appear- 
ance of Goethe's poem. Thoas, the Barbarian, must 
not merely suffer Iphigenia to return to Hellas, he must 
bring her back, he must go himself and help her 
in her new work. Then the historical measure of the 
legend will be filled up to date, and may voicelessly 
await its next grand epoch of expression. What she 
has done for him and his world, he must do for her 
and her world. The final restoration of Iphigenia to 
Hellas has been and is to be the work of Barbarians, 
yet with active co-operation on her part. 

We are inclined to think that Goethe himself rubbed 
against the bounds of his present drama. In Italy, 
when he began to transform his earlier work, and re- 
think it all with the new experience, the conception of 
an Ipliigenin at Delphi rose in his mind, as the com- 
pletion of the legend. Hardly otherwise could it have 
been, for he is the limit-transcending seer as well as 
the limit-fixing poet of these modern days ; what stirs 



IPHIGENIA. 223 

him temporarily, often has a far-reaching significance 
prophetic of worlds yet to rise. He never completed 
even a f nil scheme of the new drama ; he had too much 
other work partiall}' finished, which called for comple- 
tion. So he resohitel}^ brought to an end his Iphigenia 
at Ta^iris, which was already written in prose, and left 
his unfinished idea to the future. 

Besides these three characters — Iphigenia, Orestes, 
Thoas — there are some minor characters, like Calchas 
and Pylades, which might be developed on the same 
historical lines. Calchas would show the priestly func- 
tion of the man developing from the old to the new, 
though that function is seen in its highest power in 
the woman of the legend, Iphigenia. Pylades would 
reveal the conception of friendship, as it unfolds from 
the ancient view into that of our own era. In fact, 
some dramas in antiquity (as the Dulorestes) and some 
in modern times (several on the French stage) have 
made the friendship of Orestes and P^'lades the center 
of the dramatic interest. Such a poetic treatment, 
however, does not embrace the universal sweep of the 
legend, but simply follows out one of its subordinate 
branches. 

Still the main interest and value of the stud}^ of the 
Iphigenia legend is to behold the whole of it from be- 
ginning to end, in all the forms which it has tal<en 
through time, and to see it unfolding with the race and 
mirroring the entire course of ci\ilization. Thus the 
eye and the soul become opened to the grand signifi- 
cance of the legend in the education of mankind, es- 
pecially of infant mankind ; we see too that it marks 
out the path and the sweep of the world's literature; 
it bears also the suggestion, if not the doctrine, of an 
universal rehgion. Such a legend truly teaches spirit- 
ual development, with its twofold correspondence in 
the race and in the individual, as the grand fact of the 
world's history. Shall we not say that the movement 
of humanity is imaged together in legend, in literature, 
and in religion ? 

We must, indeed, sympathetically take up allmani- 



224 IFHIGENIA. 

festations into our spirit ; avc must feel that all the 
poems on the Iphigenia legend, all its incarnations, 
literary, musical, mj'thological, even philosophical and 
critical, are only single strains which blend together 
and make one vast orchestral harmonj^ Then we have 
reached a true appreciation of the Iphigenia legend. 

But even thus we are not done. One legend only 
is ours, we must take others and trace them to a like 
completion. Many are these legendary treasures, the 
race has made them and preserved them, for the pop- 
ular consciousness is at bottom mythical. We shall 
find every true legend — by this is meant not a mere 
spoi't of fancy or ingenious fabrication — has the his- 
tory of man in it, wholly or in part, and has the power 
of developing with man. Especially those legends 
which have flowered into great poems — that of the 
struggle between Orient and Occident in Homer, that 
of the Future State in Dante, that of Negation in 
Goethe's Faust, — are the chosen ones for study and 
contemplation, chosen by the world's greatest spirits 
and set to the music of the spheres. 



•\ 



^^'liiiK^-'^^i 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



016 225 808 4 






m 












•«f$?;f 






•''i'lV;-- '""'1 






